Guidance

What a vet needs to do on a review and follow-up

Farmers should send this guidance to their vet, so they can see what to do on a review or follow-up. This guidance includes details of testing, how to advise, and what information to provide.

Applies to England

This service is called 鈥楪et funding to improve animal health and welfare鈥. It forms part of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. It鈥檚 designed to help farmers:聽聽

  • test for endemic diseases and conditions聽
  • increase animal productivity聽
  • improve animal welfare

There are 2 parts to the service:

  • animal health and welfare review
  • endemic disease follow-up

A follow-up can only be done after a review. It should be on the same species and herd or flock聽that had the review. For the farmer to be eligible to claim funding, they must follow the rules for when to have a review or a follow up. You can read about when to have a review and when to have a follow-up.

Reviews and follow-ups are not inspections or audits.

Who can claim

A farmer is eligible to claim if they keep any of the following per herd or flock:

  • 11 or more beef cattle
  • 11 or more dairy cattle
  • 21 or more sheep
  • 51 or more pigs

Arrange a review or follow-up

The farmer will contact you to arrange a review or follow-up.

Review and follow-ups do not have a set time, but they typically take between 2 and 3 hours.

The farmer can agree with you to do a review or follow-up either:

  • over several visits to the farm
  • in a single visit

What a farmer will ask you to do

The farmer will ask you to follow the steps in the review guidance or follow-up guidance.

Required actions

The vet guidance has information on:

  • testing and specifications a laboratory needs to meet聽
  • what you need to include in a summary and written report聽
  • how to confirm a herd with our 鈥楾ell us about a herd or flock鈥 section of the form

You can read the vet guidance for:

Cattle testing required for an animal health and welfare review and endemic disease follow-up

Pig testing required for an animal health and welfare review and endemic disease follow-up

Sheep testing required for an animal health and welfare review and endemic disease follow-up

Vet templates

There are blank vet summary templates your vet can use to:

  • confirm the details of the herd聽
  • provide the information about the visit, so the farmer can make a claim

Vet summary templates for all species

Other schemes

The farmer cannot use other accreditation scheme test results for this funding.

They can use the review or follow-up test results for other accreditation schemes they鈥檙e a member of. They should also check with the accreditation scheme that they鈥檒l accept testing from the review or follow-up.

Funding to improve animal health and welfare: guidance for farmers and vets

Updates to this page

Published 19 June 2024
Last updated 26 June 2025 show all updates
  1. Shortened the title of the page. Added a section to the page about the vet templates and information about the new herd details.

  2. Warning about endemic disease follow-up not being available for dairy cattle removed.

  3. Added more information about the follow-up being on the same species as the review.

  4. First published.

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