22 Mar Farmcare wins second-generation vet service
supply contract for private practice

There can be no doubt that the determination of all farm practices to continue to deliver business-as-usual services in the face of the challenges of the pandemic have underlined the need for Government to remain fully engaged with private practitioners. The difficulties experienced by colleagues in APHA made them more aware
of the sensitivities of supporting your farms day-to-day and of the challenges in managing your teams of vets and support staff. The regular capacity updates, updated via TOM, and your determination not to let TB testing and other disease surveillance programs slip, were a clear indication to Government of the importance of retaining the engagement of private practice in the next contract cycle, which is now underway. In the year since our last newsletter for practices, Farmcare regional companies have been restructured to ensure that all key players in farm veterinary service delivery can work together to provide an unrivalled veterinary offer for Government and continuing to deliver a veterinary-led and integrated farm health service with strong representation from private practices such as your own.

All parties to the Farmcare service remain committed to ensuring that any livestock farmer’s local vet can provide the farm’s statutory Government veterinary work, if they choose to do so. We firmly believe that all the surveillance work, required to control diseases of national importance, works much more effectively when it is integrated with the wider local animal health services provided by the farm’s local vet practice.
Despite a decision to readjust the boundaries between the different regions and to reduce the number of VDP businesses to just four in England, the Authority have continued to link provision of services such as brucella and anthrax surveillance and emergency manpower in the event of a national disease outbreak to the regular ‘bread and butter’ TB testing provision. Bidders for the second-generation TB testing contract had to include provision to provide a significant number of vets at very short notice to support disease outbreaks and they must also continue to provide a 24/7/365 service for sudden death and bovine abortion inquiries.
The changing nature of practice ownership meant that it was essential that both Independent VetCare (IVC) and Vet Partners’ practices remained involved with the founder practice groupings, with several independently owned practices now represented by a membership company called ‘Obligace’. Most of those independently owned practices are also XL Vet member practices. These three business entities between them provide TB testing and other veterinary services for over 6 in 10 of the cattle on farms in England. If any one of them were to abandon service delivery en-masse, then it is difficult to see how a national service could be sustained.
Working with UK Farmcare to present a reasoned and proven case for continuing to deliver the various veterinary services via rural private practice, this group of businesses have been able to justify a significant uplift in payment rates for practices to remain at the heart of Government veterinary service delivery.