TRAINING OF AUXILIARIES IN E.U. MEMBER STATES
(MEAT HYGIENE INSPECTORS/MEAT TECHNICIANS)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PART I - RECOMMENDATIONS
FINAL REPORT - DECEMBER 2003
1. All fifteen EU Member States were written to and all replied and participated except for Greece.
2. In Continental Europe, a number of countries do not train or employ Auxiliaries for mainly historical, cultural and economic reasons; e.g. a tradition of full veterinary inspection, and/or a surplus of veterinary graduates, or too small an industry. These countries are Austria, Belgium, (Greece ?), Italy and Luxembourg.
3. In other EU Member States, there is a varying amount of training in accordance with supply and demand and all the courses claim to meet the requirements of the current EU Directives. Provision of courses varies, firstly the short intensive type of theoretical course lasting only a few weeks, held at a Further Education College, with substantial veterinary involvement and backed up by practical experience, which is typified by Finland, and possibly Northern Ireland within the UK. The Irish Republic trains Technical Agricultural Officers who are employed for support duties, but not inspection. A number of larger countries have developed permanent training at centres of excellence, such as, the Danish Meat Training College at Roskilde, the French training centre at Corbas, Lyon, and in the Netherlands training is carried out by the Utrecht University Veterinary Faculty.
4. To some extent, there has been a lack of emphasis on Auxiliary training in recent years because of the EU requirement for full-time veterinary supervision.
5. Internal discussions about the future of training are taking place but there is a tendency to ‘wait and see’ what Brussels will require before making detailed plans and commitments.
6. A number of countries such as Denmark and Spain (Catalunya) have fairly advanced plans for extended courses, but are awaiting developments from the EU.
7. It has been convenient and cost-effective to attempt to supplement the Udall RCVS Trust Report on Veterinary Public Health Training as there is a degree of overlap between VPH and Auxiliary Training.
8. For that reason, other Scandinavian countries (as well as Denmark) and also Italy were visited and will be reported on. Visits and meetings were held in Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
9. Some specific recommendations with regard to rationalisation and improvement of Auxiliary training in the UK will be made, listed separately.
10. Further specific recommendations with regard to VPH training in the UK and in Europe will be made and these will also be listed separately.
11. Specific recommendations with regard to the revision of the Veterinary Surgeons’ Act, where it impacts on Veterinary Public Health, will also be listed separately.
12. A specific recommendation with regard to funding in Scotland will be made - see APPENDIX ‘A’.
13. A specific recommendation with regard to both Veterinary and Medical Public Health service delivery will again be listed separately - see APPENDIX ‘B’.
14. Comments will be made on the functional structure of the Meat Hygiene Service in Britain (UK Section - see APPENDIX ‘C’).
15. Comments will be made on the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA Com.) report on the availability of and demand for farm animal veterinary services (APPENDIX ‘D’).
16. Comments will also be made on the DEFRA ministerial decision that the State Veterinary Service should leave core DEFRA and become a Next Steps executive agency (APPENDIX ‘E’).
17. All the above Recommendations are to be found in Part I of this Report whist Part II contains my personal Opinion and Conclusions.
Part III - From Austria through to the UK (country by country reports).
Norman W. Leslie, B.A., M.V.B., M.R.C.V.S. December 2003
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This report was originally commissioned and sponsored by the
VETERINARY PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
(a Specialist Division of the British Veterinary Association)
to whom the author wishes to express his thanks.
TRAINING OF AUXILIARIES IN E.U. MEMBER STATES
(MEAT HYGIENE INSPECTORS/MEAT TECHNICIANS)
CAVEAT: The opinions and recommendations expressed are those of the author alone and are not necessarily those of the Veterinary Public Health Association or any other organisation.
RECOMMENDATIONS - DECEMBER 2003
It is beyond the remit of this Report to make recommendations which directly effect the internal arrangements of other EU Member States.
UNITED KINGDOM (GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND):
1. Although Further Education Colleges are in competition with each other, some attempt should be made to standardise the Log Book System of checking on the practical experience gained by students on extramural placement training.
2. Training Colleges should rapidly develop informal, leading to formal, working arrangements with the appropriate University Faculties of Veterinary Medicine, as already exemplified by the Glasgow (Scotland) arrangements.
3. Present funding arrangements discriminate unfairly against Glasgow in Scotland and attempts should be made to correct this anomaly (detailed reasons will follow in the UK section of the report see Appendix ‘A’).
4. The awarding bodies, (REHIS in Scotland and RSH for England and Wales) should harmonise and rationalise their syllabus and examinations as soon as possible.
5. The CIEH syllabus and examination for EHOs should also be harmonised with those of REHIS and RSH.
6. The RCVS MUST FULLY INVOLVE ITSELF with the syllabus, examinations, listing and registration of Auxiliaries in Britain as it already does in Northern Ireland. This will involve detailed discussions between the RCVS, CIEH, REHIS and RSH. This is a necessary development in view of the role of the OVS as the Team Leader in the Meat Hygiene Service and the practical working relationships between OVs, MHIs and MTs which follow there from and potentially in other areas as well.
7. VETERINARY SUPERVISION should be meaningful and carefully defined, NOT like the over centralised, bureaucratic and disastrous example set by MAFF/DEFRA, Page Street with an insufficient number of distant Animal Health Office branches and a lack of middle management and well-trained staff. As a Government Agency, the Meat Hygiene Service at York must never be allowed to do this. The Centre must support the Regions and the Regions must support the Centre.
8. With regard to CPD training for Auxiliaries, for Senior MHIs only, the RCVS Certificate/Diploma should have an additional Module added in Communication Skills and Leadership as soon as possible.
9. As the Meat Hygiene Service becomes more established, it should identify its Human Resource Training needs in the longer term so that Fast Track Courses will be phased out, other than in exceptional circumstances. Modular training may be necessary for Plant staff, together with Modular re-training for existing Auxiliaries.
10. Under the forthcoming EU Hygiene Regulations IF plant staff are to be permitted to take the place of Official Auxiliaries, their training must always be FULLY EQUIVALENT in all respects NOT simply trained for one or more specific tasks within the plant. Qualified staff should be officially listed and should have similar career opportunities as Official Auxiliaries. This means that sectors of the industry should look ahead and should start training staff NOW if they wish to be seriously involved.
11. In the longer term, training requirements will become both longer and more intensive which, in turn should lead to some rationalisation within the training industry, and the opportunity to develop one or more centres of excellence within the UK.
12. In this regard, further detailed research will be required but I believe that as one of the major EU nations involved in Auxiliary training, there is sufficient scope for future investment and the development of two centres of excellence for training in Britain. It is likely that one of these would be at Glasgow, serving Scotland and the other would be either Salford University College, Manchester OR Harper Adams University College, Shropshire: serving England and Wales. Northern Ireland also should develop its own Centre of Excellence, hopefully in collaboration with the Republic of Ireland.
13. Also in the longer term, consideration should be given to the development of a Europe-wide qualification for Auxiliaries. This will involve discussions between the Awarding Bodies of the UK, those of other Member States, the RCVS, Federation of Veterinarians of Europe and the European Commission. This could also be facilitated by setting up cultural exchange schemes between different Member States.
14. Although not in EU legislation, for maritime nations in particular, the inclusion of fish and sea food inspection training should be considered. Portugal is at present the only member state which includes this aspect. This is likely to become of increasing importance as wild fish stocks continue to decline and farmed fish supplies increase.
15. The forthcoming REVISION OF THE VETERINARY SURGEONS ACT presents the opportunity to recognise the roles of Auxiliaries and other paraprofessionals in addition to veterinary nurses who are already well established. Therefore, there should be places allotted on RCVS COUNCIL for ELECTED nominees from the Authorised Meat Inspectors Association, from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Health Protection Agency, the Trading Standards Institute and possibly other bodies as well.
16. DELIVERY OF BOTH VETERINARY AND HUMAN MEDICAL PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES. There is a strong case for INTEGRATION of these services at all levels. This occurs to a varying degree in continental Europe, but the ITALIAN model is worthy of detailed examination (see the Italy section of the Report - Appendix ‘B’). THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND also has integrated Zoonosis Committees based on the eight Regional Health Boards where medical, veterinary, environmental and other disciplines work closely together under the aegis of the Food Standards Authority of Ireland.
Norman W. Leslie, B.A., M.V.B., M.R.C.V.S. December 2003
OFFICIAL VETERINARY SURGEON - TRAINING IN THE U.K. AND EUROPE:
1. As well as continuous assessment, there should be both a written and practical examination at the end of the OVs Course and this should include an element of Communication Skills, after appropriate training.
2. As the ultimate employer, the Meat Hygiene Service in the UK should insist on Language Proficiency by oral and written test before designation for OVs. This should also apply to other Member States when foreign nationals are to be employed.
3. CPD Training for OVs should include Communication and Leadership Skills.
VETERINARY PUBLIC HEALTH TRAINING IN U.K. AND EUROPE:
1. The Heads of Veterinary Schools (HOVs) should urgently pursue their self-imposed programme of improvement of V.P.H. training at British veterinary schools, as reported and recommended to the RCVS Education Committee in October 2001, with a commitment to full implementation within five years (October 2006).
2. Heads of all European veterinary schools should also commit themselves to collaboration and implementation of VPH training improvement, if they have not already done so.
3. The EAEVE/FVE Education Committee should have similar powers of visitation, approval AND SANCTIONS which the RCVS already possesses.
CPD TRAINING FOR STATE VETERINARIANS:
A recent report from the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA.Com.) of the House of Commons exposed the fact that neither DEFRA nor the competition commission had any idea of the economics of rural veterinary practice (Ref. Veterinary Record 1st November p.542). This serious omission in policy-making could in part be rectified by introducing compulsory CPD for all State Veterinarians of DVM Grade and above, in particular, those based in Page Street HQ. This must take place in rural veterinary practices and it should also apply in more general terms to their administrative counterparts. It is absolutely essential that policy-making is reconnected with the economic and social realities of every-day rural life in Britain.
EUROPEAN INSPECTION COSTS AND CHARGES:
1. The Charging Directive is out of date and in need of revision.
2. The differentials allowed between Member States charging policies are too wide.
3. The EU Commission must redefine and distinguish between costs incurred by the State (public health and food safety) and costs incurred by the industry (food quality), and hidden subsidies should be exposed.
4. In a global context, we should compare the EU charging system with that of the United States of America, of Canada and also that of Australia and New Zealand. In the USA most of the inspection costs are borne by Government as a Public Health responsibility.
5. It is understood that some of these issues will be addressed in the ongoing Brussels negotiations on the revision of Hygiene Regulations.
NOTE: This is not an exhaustive or final list and may be subject to change.
Norman W. Leslie, B.A., M.V.B., M.R.C.V.S. December 2003
APPENDIX ‘A’
FUNDING OF COURSES:
In England and Wales the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) distribute central funds through its Local Offices to Colleges of Further Education. Funding per student is based on Guided Learning Hours of tuition which are set by individual Colleges in accordance with the syllabus requirements of the awarding body (RSH and CIEH)
Funding examples in 2003 are £1,706 per annum per student for 300 Guided Learning Hours (GLH) (banded 300 - 329 hours). This includes a partly assured fee element of £328.00 which is paid (sponsored) by the Meat Hygiene Service. If there were 500 Guided Learning Hours (banded 400 - 509) the figure would be £2,964 including £570.00 of assumed fee funding (sponsored).
In Scotland, the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC), a non-departmental Government body, is responsible for the distribution of funding to Further and Higher Education Colleges.
The calculation of funding has a different methodology:
The basic unit is the WSUM = Weighted Student Unit of Measurement which equals 40 Programmed Learning Hours. There is a Standard price per WSUM (including notional fee income) for 2003-04 of £164.12. Subjects taught are banded in 18 different Programme Groups ranging from Agriculture, Horticulture and Animal Care which has the highest weighting of 1.5232 down to Social Studies and Language which has the lowest weighting of 0.7434. These weightings reflect the recurrent expenses which Colleges incur for the provision of the different types of Courses, and the weighting for Catering and Food is 1.1757, which is applied to Auxiliary (Meat Hygiene Inspectors) training at the Glasgow College of Food Technology.