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Animal Health and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain: The Evidence Base

Chapter 6: Vets and research

6.1 Introduction

6.1.1 Vets play a vital role both in the private sector and within government in the prevention and cure of animal disease and in promoting and investigating animal welfare issues. This section provides information on number of vets, what types of animals they treat, and the distances from where veterinary practices are located to the livestock they are treating.

6.1.2 Scientific research is an essential part of developing the evidence required to be able to create sensible strategies, policies, codes of practice and legislation. Limited research funds need to be targeted to best meet the demands for improved scientific knowledge.

6.2 Vets in the public sector

6.2.1 Vets are employed in a number of roles within government, e.g. the State Veterinary Service (SVS), the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) and the Food Standards Agency. In 2002/03 the SVS employed almost 330 vets at a cost of 17.6 million.

6.2.2 In addition there are currently approximately 7 thousand Local Veterinary Inspectors (LVIs) on the SVS books, although not all of them will be working at one time. LVIs are vets from private practices appointed by the SVS to carry out government work such as TB testing. There are 100 Temporary Veterinary Inspectors (TVIs) or equivalent employed at present. This figure rose to 2,500 during the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak. In 2002/03 the total cost of employing LVIs and TVIs was almost 37 million. Many veterinary inspectors have been employed on work related to the FMD outbreak. The total cost of this work since the start of the outbreak in 2001 is 87.4 million. Table 6.2.1 gives more detailed information on the cost and number of SVS vets and veterinary inspectors.

Table 6.2.1 Cost and number of vets employed by Defra

Source: Defra, SVS Finance

6.3 Vets in the private sector

6.3.1 The 2002 Directory of Veterinary Practices produced by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons listed over 3,400 veterinary premises (main practices and branches) throughout Great Britain; of these 2,233 were main practices, the rest being branch practices. In total, there were over 7 thousand registered vets. Table 6.3.1 shows practice size by numbers of vets per practice (based on main practices only). It can be seen from this that the largest number of vets work in small or very small practices.

Table 6.3.1 Number of main veterinary practices in Great Britain in 2002, by practice size

Source: Defra, RCVS

6.3.2 Overall 1,061 practices were dealing with companion and small animals only. Although these practices were spread across the whole country the highest concentrations were found in more urban areas, around London and the South East of England, parts of the North East and North West of England and in Scotland around Edinburgh and Glasgow. The 51 practices dealing solely with agricultural animals were predominantly located in farming areas in England and Wales. Mixed practices handling both companion animals and agricultural animals numbered 862 and these were fairly evenly distributed across the country. The remaining practices fell into a mixture of categories and, apart from a small number of specialist horse practices, they all combined treatment of companion animals with another animal specialism such as goats, deer, horses, goats or poultry.

6.4 Distance from livestock holdings to veterinary practices in England

6.4.1 Looking at holdings in England that had some type of livestock recorded on the June 2002 Agricultural Census we can see that just under 51 per cent were within 5km of a veterinary practice (including ones dealing with pets only) compared to just under 35 per cent of livestock holdings within 5km of a practice listed as dealing with large animals.

Table 6.4.1 Distance from livestock holdings to veterinary practice (any type)

Table 6.4.2 Distance from livestock holding to veterinary practices (large animals only or mixed large and small animal)

Source: Defra, RCVS

6.5 Expenditure on research into animal health and welfare

6.5.1 There is considerable expenditure by government and other organisations such as the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) on research into animal health and welfare. Defra's Animal Health and Welfare Directorate is currently funding about 280 scientific research projects relating to animal health and welfare. These projects can last for anything from 3 months to over 14 years. In 2003/04 a total of 34.5 million has been allocated to these projects, with a further 30.7 million already allocated for spending in 2004/05. The total cost of the current projects will be almost 190 million. In 2003/04 SEERAD spent almost 6.4 million through the animal disease, behaviour and welfare research programme of SEERADs Agricultural and Biological Research Programme. The BBSRC provided 20 grants in 2003 for research into animal health and welfare worth a total of 3.75 million.

6.5.2 Figure 6.5.1 illustrates how the 34.5 million spent on research by Defra in 2003/4 was allocated across different types of project types. In 2003/04 research into Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) accounted for 45 per cent of total spending on animal health and welfare research, other diseases (including TB, other statutory and exotic diseases and zoonoses) accounted for 34 per cent of spending and animal welfare research accounted for 10 per cent of spending.

Figure 6.5.1: Expenditure by type of project by Defra on animal health and welfare research in 2003/04

Source: Defra, Animal Health and Welfare Directorate

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