What does the UK ruminant antibiotic stewardship roadmap report tell us?

Fiona Lovatt

Hello everyone, I’m Fiona Lovatt, and I’m introducing the RCVS Knowledge podcast special to celebrate the launch of the UK Ruminant Antibiotic Stewardship Roadmap. The roadmap is a result of a year long collaborative initiative which has seen the UK ruminant sector come together to develop ways of promoting and evidencing responsible antibiotic stewardship. I’d like to welcome my co chairs, Mark Jelley, a beef and arable farmer from Northamptonshire, and chair of the Cattle Antibiotic Guardian Group, and David Black, who is a farm vet from Cumbria and has just handed over the presidency of the BCVA, British Cattle Vets Association.

Myself, I’m an independent sheep veterinary consultant and both the RSVS Knowledge Clinical Lead for Farm Medicines and the Chair of the Sheep Antibiotic Guardian Group. So, Mark, I’m going to come to you first. Why is this ruminant roadmap so important to you?

Mark Jelley

Hi Fiona. Yeah, I mean, from our point of view within the livestock sector and within the the cattle sector in particular, we rely heavily on our reputation to reassure our consumers that we have a both quality product, a safe product, and a product they can trust. And that is really built on our sector reputation. The sector reputation is is multifaceted, it’s obviously based around environmental responsibility, but it’s also based around responsible use of antibiotics as well.

And it’s absolutely vital from my point of view that we’re able to demonstrate both internally within the UK to our consumers, but also within the trade and export markets, that we have a safe product, that we have a product that can be relied upon. So when we say that it is produced using antibiotics responsibly, it is produced using antibiotics responsibly. And that we can use that as a a marketing tool for the sector rather than turning around and shrugging our shoulders and just hoping that people will buy our product.

Premium is where the reputation is. The premium isn’t where it’s just another commercial commodity product.

Fiona

Mm-hmm. Brilliant. Okay. Thanks, Mark. And David, what about the importance of the roadmap from your perspective as a farm vet?

David

Well I think Mark’s touched on some of the… there’s obviously a big overlap between the the veterinary community and the farming community. But I think from the vet point of view a lot of this is around the fact that we believe and and I’m I’m convinced and most of us are that we’ve done a really good job on antibiotic stewardship in the UK in the ruminant sector over the last number of years.

But it’s very difficult for us to evidence that. And I think we have to be able to evidence it. I think we’ve currently got a social license to both farm and forbets to treat animals and to be the guardians, the gatekeepers for all farm all all all prescription medicines, not just antibiotics. But it’s very difficult for us to then evidence that best practice and to be able to maintain that trust and the tools in the toolbox. I think that’s one of my key things. If we don’t demonstrate that we can use these tools responsibly, there’s a risk in the future that that we we don’t have access to what we need as veterinary surgeons. And I think the other big thing for me out of the roadmap is about how we drive that conversation on farm between the vets and the livestock farmers around all aspects of animal health and welfare, not just medicine usage.

Fiona

Yeah, it’s I mean it’s true, isn’t it? Our our doctors, our vets, our farmers, we’ve all been able to successfully treat bacterial conditions for for 80 years, and that’s massive privilege, but there’s a huge responsibility to go that goes with that. And I think we’re all we all agree with that. So coming back to what you’ve just said there, David, and we know good stewardship involves people, conversations, collaboration. So we’ve in this roadmap and in the research that underpins it, we’ve pulled together the entire ruminant supply chains. We’ve spoken with over 560 individuals, and we’ve directly engaged with 74 different veterinary and agricultural organisations. So that’s quite a big body of evidence.

Was there anything that came out of that research that surprised you, David?

David Black

I think to be honest, the thing that surprised me most was the amount of of consistency there was in the messages across the whole sector. When we had the the summit in London, we had eighty or eighty people in the room and the moment the consensus was was was powerful. I thought there may be more of that. The industry may may be outlying from from the the the mainstream ideas, but there weren’t.

And and I think that’s been both humbling and powerful that the whole sector, all all aspects of the sector, from policy makers through through government, through pharmaceutical everybody that’s involved with with our food chain and and supplying medicines into that food chain have been aligned on this.

Fiona

And Mark, you’ve been I mean I don’t know how long you’ve been chair of Cattle Antibiotic Guardian Group, but it is years, isn’t it? You’ve been working on this for a long time. is there anything that came out of the research that surprised you? Did you did you learn anything new from what people were saying?

Mark

I think David actually touched on the the consistency of the messaging in in many ways from different organisations. One of the things that we’ve found with working within the Catal Antibiotic Guardian Group is that you you feel at times isolated from different parts of the the industry. It feels the vets are talking about one part of things, the farmers are talking about something different. And trying to pull that together to actually achieve the same end result is can be challenging at times.

So David’s point about the consistency of the messaging is actually really reassuring because it gives us a really solid bound base and foundation to start building on. Some of the key points that came out for me were things like the the number of farmers still recording using paper records on farm. That’s quite stark.

We’re looking at something like forty seven percent of farms that are still using paper recording. Now that’s within a survey that was conducted digitally. And I think it’s fair to say that would be a best case scenario within the industry rather than a worst case. It goes to show that data capture, data collection from farm record systems is gonna be incredibly difficult going forwards, and we’ve probably therefore got to be realistic here and accept the fact that as an industry, if we want this data, we’re gonna have to go back to better sales data or practice data. Because that is ultimately a source which is more consistent, easier to not easy, but easier to gather and might offer opportunities for us to actually gather data in a way that can then be further interpreted and used within the within the sectors.

Other parts of the work that came through really clearly were the the need for consistent messaging from from government. I know that the government feel at times they’re giving consistent messages, but I think it’s fair to say that from the the feedback we’ve had, there’s been that hasn’t translated through to either producers, vets or through to the supply chain even.

And that’s something which we really need going forward. We really need a a bit of vision and a bit of consistent direction from the powers that be to help us understand what they expect from us. Because having goalposts that either move or are not clearly signposted in the first place makes it incredibly hard to bring an industry of tens of thousands of producers and thousands of vets along in the same direction.

Fiona

So let’s let’s start talking about exactly what’s in the roadmap. And we are hoping people listening will actually follow through the link and actually go and look read it for themselves. But I think from my point of view, to  summarise a a key take home, it would be how the the differentiation between how we we’ve looked at improved national minimum data that’s comprehensive but anonymised to go to authorities and how that’s quite separate from the safe space of the vet farmer interaction at farm level.

Mark, can can you expand on the importance of that relationship between the vet and the farmer?

Mark

Yeah, sure. I mean I came from a a traditional single site vet practice originally where my vet was a superb firefighting vet and we didn’t do any health proactive health planning and we moved when he retired excuse me we moved when he retired to a a larger practice with multiple vets and encountered herd health planning for the first time.

Now I have to say that was a quite a painful process at first because it cost us money to do any herd health planning. It cost us some time and input as well. They asked us awkward questions that we didn’t really want to admit to, like talking about losses and where the problems might be. And you know, it all felt like quite a personal judgment on us as farmers. And it’s only over time that we’ve had those conversations with our vets and come to trust them, that the conversations have really opened up and we’ve started to appreciate that not only are they trying to sell us stuff, but actually they’re trying to sell us stuff for the right reasons.

They’re trying to sell us stuff because the stuff works and vaccines do make a difference and improving the ventilation in the shed can reduce the pneumonia risk and and all the things that we know can be a a benefit. So that personal experience has made me realize that first of all, you can feel quite vulnerable entering into these conversations with a vet in the first place.

If it’s the first time you’re encountering them. But second of all, when those are written down on paper, they feel even more stark. It’s then a very much a judgment that loses context. And the last thing I want is for any of the conversations that I have with my vets, whether it be David, whether it be yourself or any of my vets in my practice, to be being judged by anybody else without that context of my farm. And therefore, I think it’s really important that we maintain the trust and the the relationship between the farmer and the vet because it takes time to build. It doesn’t take very long to lose. And that’s why I’m really, really reluctant to allow my data to be viewed by somebody sitting in an office in London who is going to look at my data and make a pass a judgment themselves, because inevitably they will if they can see it, on whether my vet has prescribed the right products for me, whether I’ve behaved in the right way, and where I might sit in some kind of ranking.

That to me makes me massively uncomfortable as a producer. So from my point of view, I would like to ensure that the conversation between me and my vet remains anonymous and it can therefore be as comprehensive and as open and as honest as possible because that has the best outcome for the health and welfare of my animals. And ultimately it also has the best outcome for the profitability of my business.

Fiona

Okay, David, you might want to add to that point, but I actually want to I want you to give us some of the details of how we how the roadmap sets out details or the flow of medicines and data around how we can achieve this. And this is quite a big area because you you haven’t got the it’s easier to s to to visualise and it is to talk about. But can you can you attempt it for us please, David?

David

Yes, I I’ll have a go indeed and and as you say, if people have followed the link they they can see the the actual sort of graphical representation of this.

I think there’s two two points to say in the preamble. One is that the research also showed us quite starkly how many routes of supply of medicine there may be onto farms, probably more than I expected. Now some of those are secondary vets working with within that unit, other other vets so mo more than one practice or more than one vet supplying medicines onto one farm.

But it also could be dispensers who are filling prescriptions that are being sent from the primary practice. But currently some of those medicine supplies are not being captured. I think the other thing is that we have to it’s a slightly trite comment, but not let perfection be the enemy of progress here. I think it would be lovely to have animal level data captured, usage data at animal level. I think we have to be realistic and as Mark’s already pointed out with the recording systems on a lot of farms at this point in time, particularly mixed species units, it’s very difficult for that to happen. So I think it’s been very clear throughout the roadmap that the medicine reporting has to be at the practice level or at the dispensing level. Whoever is selling that medicine onto that farm. One slight downside to that is that can only be the intention of the vet who’s prescribing or supplying that medicine.

So for example I could supply a hundred mil bottle of streptomycin to a farmer.

Let’s say it was dispensed for a lame cow, you may use some of that in a sheep at lambing time, for example. I can’t legislate or mandate for that. I think we have to understand that some of these medicines will be used across species. But in the end of the day it’s it’s the medicine that’s been supplied onto the farm that’s important.

So if we might go back to what you said originally, Fiona, there’s two key outputs from the from the roadmap. The first one is that anonymised aggregated national data that we need to supply for our markets, our international trading markets, the figure that government wants and needs and must rely on, it must be trustworthy and as accurate as as it can be. So that’s at the very sort of top end of the of the of the table, if you like. And at the bottom end, which is in my view the most important end is the part that drives the conversation between the vet, the primary vet and the farmer.

And I think that’s where the the the huge value out of this comes from the vet profession, for the vet profession and for the farmer. And as Mark’s already touched on, that’s a trusted relationship and we can have that discussion hopefully at least annually, hopefully formally in a way that that we can certify that that conversation has has happened.

And that then the the the figure, the milligrams per kilogram figure drives the conversation. It’s not the end point. Because as Mark’s already touched on, there’s perfectly valid reasons for why at times or in certain situations that milligram per kilogram figure may be higher or lower. And if it’s out of context, then people don’t understand why that might be. so for example, somebody may, for no fault of their own, be walking into a salmonella outbreak and suddenly needs to use quite a lot more antibiotics to get on top of that outbreak until vaccines get a chance to kick in and what have you.

And that would look like a spike on somebody’s data. And if we don’t know why that has happened, it can look quite bad. So the map the roadmap therefore shows that the the the flow of medicine onto the farm can be from the primary vet or it can be from a secondary vet or more one or more secondary vets or other dispensers, medicine supply, supplying on the back of prescriptions, for example.

So the the medicine can flow on that way and therefore the data needs to flow that way as well. So the the roadmap shows that the data from the primary vet practice hopefully supplied directly through the practice management system or through some sort of aggregating software that may sit on top of the practice management system feeds that data into what we’re calling Medicine Hub Two for the purposes of the this exercise.

So the data flows from the veterinary practice management system. We’re suggesting that that’s at least monthly in time. It would be lovely to have that as a real data feed. But currently we’re suggesting that that’s at least monthly. That would fit in with monthly billing cycles for the practice management system. And that data supplied into Medicine Hub Two and let’s call that data one.

Then we have other data coming in from other people who may be supplying medicines onto that farm, as I’ve already described. And we’re calling that data too. And there may be several routes of two. there may be an online pharmacy, for example, or there may be another practice supplying medicines onto the farm on the back of perhaps a different different unit within the different sort of species within the farm or whatever. But nevertheless, there will also be a requirement. in the roadmap for those D2 data flows to be fed into Medicine Hub 2.

Medicine Hub 2 then would consolidate that data. the data from from any supplier of the medicine would then be linked to an independent an individual farm identifier with this the CPH number, presumably. So everything is is is linked to that one farm.

Medicine Hub 2 then creates what we’re calling D three, but it’s consolidated all the data, all the medicine that’s gone on to that farm, and that D three number is then supplied back to the primary vet practice. Now the purpose for that is that the the primary vet practice, and this has not been used as a stick for the the for the vet to go and challenge his client and say, Well, why have you been using medicines from elsewhere?

This is a a way that the the vet who’s then certifying annually the medicine use on that farm has the most accurate data possible. And the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons would support that a vet can certify on the on the back of information data that can be verified. And that then helps the vet have that discussion with the farmer. There will be also a requirement for the vet to understand how many stock are on the farm. A lot of that may come through BCMS and hopefully in the future.

The livestock information service will be able to tell us how many animals are on the farm but that then can help calculate that number as well. So in most cases the D1 flow from the primary vet practice will equal D3 flow back out from medicine hub. There won’t be any other medicine supplied onto that farm and that’s fine. It’s also fine if there’s other medicine routes onto the farm but the vet who’s having that discussion with the farmer has to know what the D3 is. On a personal note I would like this system to also include all prescription only medicines because I think the the big the more of the picture that the the vet the vet having that annual discussion can have at the fingertips the better. So that may well be vaccine supply, it might be non-steroidal use, it may be dry cow tubes or whatever else it might be. I think that then gives the full picture. So Medicine Hubs two is doing that is producing the the the D three consolidated data. It’s also then producing this consolidated aggregated national data figure that we talked about before.

And the third thing it will do will be to create some sort of benchmarking figure, which we haven’t yet sort of nailed down as to how granular that benchmarking will be. But for me on a farm, if I’m going to have a chat with Mark if I was lucky enough to be his vet, I would be having that discussion and saying, okay, Mark, this is your figure. This is your the average figure for a farm of your size, your type, and the national figure is is yours is X, the national figure is Y, maybe higher, maybe lower. But it helps me drive that discussion. and again that adds value to that discussion. Not as a stick, but it may well be that can we discuss why your figure is different to the the national average figure for a farm of your size or your type or in in your part of the world. So that fundamentally is how we see the data flowing.

There will be some requirements for additional legislation to to be put in place to allow some of that to happen. And obviously there’ll be a requirement to build a medicine hub two or to find a way of getting us to Medicine Hub Two. I hope that covers off how it might flow.

Fiona

Yeah, well done. That was there.I think you covered it all nicely there. You know, we we haven’t got all the answers at this stage, have we? And as so I think it’s worth us saying a roadmap is quite high-level strategic. So we have huge consensus that this is how everyone wants it to go forward. But as you say, there are details that still need to be ironed out there. If we took some words out of the research to to summarise the the thinking behind that.

What you’ve just so brilliantly explained, David, it would one of the key things was the number serves a conversation and not the target. Like we’ve all agreed, haven’t we, that the number is important but only as as serving the conversation, not it’s not the endpoint. None of us are doing this just to get a number for a farm. That’s that’s irrelevant. What’s important is there’s good stewardship going on. and also the thing that came out strongly was that.

Vets seeing themselves as trusted advisors and advocates for farmers, but but not as the policemen. And none of us as vets want to jeopardize that special relationship we have with our farmers, that trusted that, you know, good things happen in terms of animal health and welfare when vets and farmers are honest and talking together well.

None of the vets I know want to be there pronouncing judgment on their farmers. They they see themselves as part of the farm picture. So and then the and then the third thing is is transparency. And I think where we have failed in up to now is we’ve we’ve sort of had to keep pushing aside this fact that other medicines get onto farms, that the vet farmer having that conversation don’t don’t necessarily and it’s not transparent to the to the primary vet. And that being upfront about that is really important. Mark, do you want to come in there?

Mark

Yeah, I mean it’s a delicate conversation, isn’t it? Because my primary vet practice that provides my out of hours care is really important to me. they’re the who I turn to in an emergency, they’re the people that I you know encounter on a regular basis. And having a supplier of products which can quite often be a relatively narrow range of products and realistically coming onto farm more cheaply than my own vet can supply is a difficult conversation to go and have with my out of hours vet.

But that said when it comes back to talking about the overall picture on my farm, the person who is best placed to discuss my herd situation, my flock situation, is the person providing the out of hours care or the person that is on the farm the most that I’m in most contact with. So when David talked earlier on about the data flow and how the D3 data would come back to the primary vet practice.

The importance of that is if I’m buying from an online marketplace for a particular product, I don’t want them having full access to my medicine book because it because they’ve sold me one product that’s come in and because it can be seen in medicine hub, they get full use vision vision of everything else. So being able to have an open, honest conversation with my vet and turning around to them and go, Yes, I have bought this sort of stuff from somewhere else. It’s been used and this was the outcome is really important because I could be buying in vaccines from somewhere else.

I could be buying in other antibiotics from somewhere else, and I’m having no impact on the health of my herd or flock. And without my vet knowing that those products are not working because I’m using the wrong one or because the use case was wrong for them or whatever, we can’t have a a productive conversation that actually leads to improvements in my herd and health performance. So we’ve got to keep that honesty there, we’ve got to keep that openness there to have that conversation.

It’ll require some grown up conversations to be had with the primary vet practices accepting the fact that there can be product coming from elsewhere on occasion. But at the same time, they’re the ones that are best placed to actually, you know, lead and discuss the overall herd and health planning. And they need to be turning up with that data at their hand before they arrive on my farm. We shouldn’t spend the entire meeting trying to work out how many cattle and sheep I’ve got, what products I used, why I used them.

That should be clear before that meeting takes place because the value comes from the conversation, not from the figure. We’ve laid out what it all looks like. What’s gonna happen next? How how are we how are we moving this forward into action across the sector? I think that the phase we’re at at the moment is clearly now communicating the outcomes from the road map. As you say it’s a it’s a vision rather than than anything.

David

And there’s some aspects of it that that we as a steering group can’t legislate or or mandate for. So we now need those policymakers and those people with the hands on the push strings to to have a have a sit down and have think about about how this is going to work. I think it’s clear in our roadmap that we’ve said that the government should lead on funding. We haven’t said the government should fund it. We we said that they should lead on funding. And I think with us heading into a new SPS agreement, sort of reset with Europe trade, which we haven’t yet had sight of, I think there’s an imperative there that the government is gonna have to be able to provide this this national data and accurately and be able to stand behind it.

And I think there’s also an aspect in my head that this is a public money for public good issue with with human antibiotic resistance being a a really key factor for the population of this country. And so I think there’s some aspects there that that that have to be thought about. I think there’s still quite a lot of devil in the detail and and how this aligns with that, things like the animal health and welfare pathway and other initiatives that have been going on is quite key. But as I said right at the start, I think there’s huge consensus. Why we presented this for the first time live at BCVA Congress last week and there was there was huge support for the rest of the Congress from not just from vets but from from policymakers and others really getting behind it and saying look this makes perfect sense. Sure there was a lot of discussion about the detail and the what if this happens or what if that happens. But there was definitely a huge support for this. so I think it’s for us to to keep up the the momentum, keep up the certainly communicate it over the next few weeks with the the wonderful team that we have at RCVS Knowledge and elsewhere and and get get those messages out. And then I think we have to to try and to keep the keep the initiative going, keep the keep the momentum going, which ’cause we’ve definitely built a head of steam.

Mark

Yeah, I mean I think that as David says, we need some this is the point we’ll come back to very early on in this conversation, that we need the leadership now and the direction of travel from governments. If they tell us what they want, how they need it or want it, and what the levers are, then I am fairly confident that with the right resources and a bit of luck, the industry could pull this together and actually do something quite special. it’s not for a want of trying that we haven’t managed to achieve full data coverage across the UK in the last five or six years. It’s not with for want of trying that we’ve been, you know, struggling with some of the the sales data granularity that we’d like to be able to see to understand better how and where products are being used. And there is a lot of goodwill within the industry and there is a lot of belief that this is a really important part of our sector reputation. So I’m confident that we can find the resources and the people to lead on this kind of work. And I’m quite happy to be one of those people. I’m not looking to hand this off necessarily to to you know and walk away and avoid responsibility. We we’ve got to have people prepared to stand up, take the reins and lead on this kind of stuff. But they need the tools in the place in the first place to actually make a difference. And you know, I think we can achieve that, but I do think we need that probably just to wait for the SPS details to come out in the first instance, which ought to offer a lot more clarity in terms of direction of travel going forwards.

David

If I can just come back in can I just come back in again on that, Fiona, because ’cause Mark’s used the key word, what do we need now is leadership from across all aspects of of of our our industry and our sector. and as Mark says, I think there’s a lot of people have stepped up so far, but if we all have a role to play now to lead and and and you and I within the veterinary profession and the the the the cattle and sheep respectively have got a role to play now in in leadership. So I think that that goes right through the whole the whole project.

Fiona

Mm-hmm. Yep, thanks. And and there is some good news. So pulling pulling everyone together, so far, a lot of the work for the the roadmap so far was funded via Amast, that stands for antimicrobial resistance in agrifood systems transdisciplinary network. So that’s been funded via phase one of the UKRI initiative.

And the good news is that they’ve just announced Amast have been awarded some further funding under phase two. So and one whole work package of that in their application was related to to working alongside putting this roadmap into practice. So you know, we are not on our own. In fact, we know from the we know from the summit, we know from those 74 organisations who have got some skin in the game, you know, we are not on our own. We are this is a definitely a whole industry thing and yeah there’s we’re all on the same side and where we’ve got to up to this point of launching the roadmap is a great is a great start but it is not the end is it it is the start of how we deliver it so yeah I think all of us are are looking forward to that with some interpretation with some questions still to answer but definitely what a brilliant place to be at at this point.

Fiona

Yeah, and I yes. So I guess finally, you you’ve both had a about a week to recover from officially launching at BCVA last week. Does it do either of you want to add any reflections that have things have come to you since since we launched or things people have said?

Mark

There was a couple of things that that were that were discussed at BCVA after the launch and one of them was aroundhow small what’s what the minimum herd or flock size should be for this initiative and and I think there was a lot of agreement at at BCVA that there shouldn’t be a minimum number. that it should apply to anybody who’s who’s who’s keeping animals that may be or or that are food producing animals, whether they end up in the food chain or not. So I understand that there would be enforcement costs and and some challenges around how to enforce that, but that was certainly a theme that came through.

And I think the other strong theme from BCVA was that as you’ve already touched on, Fiona, the the milligram per kilogram is just one way of demonstrating responsible use of of medicines. So I think the active health planning, proactive health planning, proactive discussions on farms, farmer meetings. I think there’s lots of other ways that we can demonstrate responsible use and we mustn’t get held. This is the message I was getting quite strongly, we mustn’t get held that this milligram per kilogram usage is the be all and end all. It’s it’s it’s it’s a big part of it, it’s a very important part of it, but it’s not the end point, as you said. This is this is one thing about a pathway, isn’t it? A pathway doesn’t doesn’t finish or usually it doesn’t finish. You’re you’re on the path, and this is the same as the animal health and welfare pathway. It’s a continuum and I think we have to keep working along that continuum. So those were the messages I was getting from BCVA.

David

I’ve had some conversations with with colleagues as well and I’ve had these are repeating themes which I’m sure most vets would have encountered. I don’t use any antibiotics, why should I care? And you know, it’s not my problem, it’s somebody else’s problem, those kind of comments. And not necessarily in objection to what we’ve done with the roadmap, but more in generally about antibiotic use. And it’s important to remember and to reiterate to people that we’re not looking to reduce use beyond the point where it’s required.

If an animal needs antibiotics, the animal should be treated. And if  a group of animals need antibiotics and that increases your use, that’s fine as well. The welfare of the animal, the health welfare of the animal is far more important than what, as David’s just said, that milligram per kilogram figure is. And I think that sometimes gets lost within the conversation. The assumption is that we are always talking about antimicrobial reduction here rather than actual responsible use. And from our point of view, looking at the the data that we the limited data that we have got available.

We already know the ruminant sectors are low users of antibiotics generally. it’s not that we are going to run into a problem with reputation if we have all of this data available to us. It would enhance our reputation considerably if we were able to explain how and where and why we were using antibiotics, but it’s not going to actually harm our reputation and show that we are high users because as the sectors, generally speaking, we’re not.

The opportunities going forwards, the the the conversations I’ve had today, I I haven’t encountered anybody yet that thinks that the the job is done. I haven’t encountered anybody that thinks that we couldn’t improve. but I also don’t see that we’re in a position where we need to massively panic. What we need to do is have a good structured direction of travel, which hopefully this is what the roadmap gives us, to enable us to make consistent progress rather than running into dead ends.

Some guidance from government, some direction of travel for them in terms of what they need for our international reputation, us to understand better, you know, how we can help them to achieve that. And then us being left alone to have the conversations between our farmers and our vets rather than being overseen by a third party. That to me would be a really, really good starting point. And I’m I’m looking forward to making progress on that.

Fiona

I think what’s just struck me is for anyone listening and the fact that the three of us are based in England. I would hate anyone to go away thinking the the most very important part of the roadmap to me is that it starts with the UK roadmap and we’ve had really solid input and support from colleagues right across the UK. And I so I would encourage listeners to actually go to the go to the report and we we’ve put in a few quotes from colleagues in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, is you know, we have spoken about the animal health and welfare pathway, which isn’t just England, but there are the the equivalent initiatives in each of the devolved nations and the support from both government and meat supply veterinary organisations across the UK has been immense and really encouraging. So the fact that it is UK wide but with some flexibility in the devolved nations. So please, please do go look at the look at the report, read it. You can find it by going to the RCVSknowledge.org website or you can Google ruminant antibiotic roadmap and you can see both a summary and the full report in detail. We’d really encourage you to both read the report and share it with those that you have contact with.

or influence over. So it just remains for me to say thank you very much to both David and Mark, who have both been amazing as co-chairs. Well, I think, yeah, we c, yeah, what a brilliant team. Thank you both very much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having us along for the right Jana. It’s been eventful.