10 Feb Approved Tuberculin Testers (ATTs)

The recruitment and training of lay TB testers, or ATTs, continues to increase across supplier practices with 206 fully trained ATTs now registered and even more with conditional status who will shortly join this pool.  The addition of this resource to practice teams has been vital in ensuing the skin testing programme for bTB continues, even in the face of other pressures such as the continuing issues with recruiting vets and the ongoing AI outbreak. 

As to be expected with any change to how the bTB skin testing programme is delivered, there has been close scrutiny of the performance of ATTs on farm.  Whilst this has largely been positive, unfortunately there have been a few issues with testing quality in recent months.  Audit requirements for both ATTs and their supervising AVSs are more stringent than for OVs and a recent analysis of audit outcomes has shown that a higher level of ATT audits have been non-compliant with Farmcare requirements on how the skin testing service should be provided when compared to how many OV audits are non-compliant.

If you have ATTs as part of your vet led practice team, we would like to ask that the TB testing SOP and the requirements of the Farmcare QA manuals are discussed with them to ensure that the importance of all areas of this are understood.  The repercussions of issues with ATT testing could be huge, both for the ATT and their AVS, and also for the continued access to this resource as part of the bTB skin testing programme, so it is important this system stands up to scrutiny by any stakeholders.  A copy of the audit assessment guide is available at Information for TB Tester audits – Farminsights if you wish to revisit these requirements. Please also remember that if anyone other than the supervising AVS or deputy has to oversee a test in emergency situations this should be recorded as a note on the SAM submission. Finally, APHA have provided clarification on eligibility of candidates for this role and GCSE grade D or above is acceptable.