10 Oct Performance Update

During August this year, 96% of all the 4,309 TB test submissions were made within the target timeline across all the XL Farmcare regions. In addition, 97% of the 132 Service B (Brucella and Anthrax) submissions were submitted before the end of the day after the farm had been visited. This is a tremendous achievement and we are assured that it represents a considerable improvement in comparison with the periods prior to April 2015.
It is especially impressive since the tight one-day timeline for all work, except for TB tests with no reactors or IRs, leaves little room for human error on those days when everything seems to happen at once.

Although individuals who regularly submit work late may still find themselves subject to a charge in respect of the costs of investigating their reasons for late submission, the regional companies continue to cover those expenses if the reason for late submission was beyond the control of the practice team.
In order to help us sustain your arguments with the Authority, it is really helpful to note down any discussions you have had with APHA in relation to any problems you may have had. If the problems are with SAM then the SAM helpdesk should always issue a reference number for your enquiry. If your queries relate to other matters, and you have used the single point of contact, then we would encourage you to check that the operative has noted all your concerns against the work schedule in question within their own view of SAM. It is also important that you make those enquiries at the time you are experiencing difficulties. This provides evidence that all reasonable attempts were being made within the required time frame.

Our administration team at XL Farmcare UK will also do whatever we can to help. We operate a permanent ticketing system for all enquiries that allows us to produce good evidence that your problems were raised before the timeline for work submission had expired.

Any late submissions that cannot be reasonably appealed, lead to a service credit being added to your practice record. These service credits have a lifetime of just six months and many of you will have noted that the accumulation of service credits is recorded on your month-end statement. A separate tab within the excel file provides a breakdown of service credits that have expired, been applied and of any appeals for your late submissions that have been successful.