12 Oct Audits

We intend to try and undertake Practice audits once every contract year to ensure that the procedures detailed in the manuals are being followed. This year XL Farmcare auditors may ask to see job bags for randomly selected work schedules from any time since start of contract. Although we will space practice visits throughout the year it is unlikely to be exactly 12 months since your last practice visit and some practices may feel that it hasn’t been long since the last time we came!

Please note that it is important that all vets who wish to remain eligible to carry out Government funded tests needs to have been audited. The contract agreed with your practice makes it clear that you must help ensure that these audits can be arranged and we will do all we can to fit in with your plans.

Contact details for the auditor that will attend are provided when audit dates are confirmed. Please contact them directly if there are any last minutes changes to the agreed plan. Some of the costs incurred as a result of any changes may be recharged to your practice if reasonable efforts aren’t made to get in touch and forewarn us.

As an alternative approach some practices may prefer to make use of a large tests to audit several OV’s.  It is now also possible to attend one of a series of on-farm audit events. These more flexible approaches are intended to assist practices that may otherwise struggle to ensure that all vets remain candidates for Government funded TB testing in the future.

Finally, we have begun to run a small series of random unannounced audits of on-farm testing alongside our normal series of scheduled and announced audits. This will allow us to compare the findings of both systems and help us to provide better evidence that working positively in partnership with supplier practices is an effective means of improving quality of testing on farm.