Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what communication has been delivered to private veterinary practices and farmers regarding the recent changes to the UK's veterinary surveillance network; and what plans her Department has to ensure that surveillance data from veterinary practices and non-APHA sources is being centrally collated and shared at a national level.

The changes to the veterinary surveillance system in England and Wales have been delivered and communicated through the project called Surveillance 2014. There has been a broad range of different communications provided by APHA to private veterinary practices and farmers regarding changes to the veterinary surveillance network, including:

(a) Public consultation on the development of a new surveillance model, from December 2012 to February 2013, which gathered over 370 responses from vets, farmers, the livestock industry and other stakeholders.

(b) Visits to a total of 57 private veterinary practices in England and Wales from January 2014 to January 2015.

(c) A series of 19 regional meetings for private veterinary practitioners in different parts of England and Wales, running from December 2014 until March 2015.

(d) A total of 22 articles, letters or other forms of communication to private veterinary practices or farmers from February 2014 to date.

Details of the surveillance model are being finalised. It will be designed to enable central collation and sharing of surveillance information from Government bodies, private veterinary practices, abattoirs, livestock industry bodies, academia and other collaborative surveillance networks nationally and internationally.