00:00:11 John Scholefield
Hello, I'm John Schofield. And today I'm going to be talking to Anne Seaton, veterinary manager, about SRUC veterinary services and the role it plays as part of SRUC.
00:00:22 John Scholefield
So and in a nutshell, what role does SRUC veterinary services play?
00:00:28 Anne Seaton
Thanks John.
00:00:30 Anne Seaton
Vet services has variety of rules, but I guess one of our key things is and our key history is around supporting farmers and veterinary practises to tackling infectious disease and that sort of history that's been going on for decades.
00:00:49 Anne Seaton
So we use.
00:00:50 Anne Seaton
Post-mortem examinations and laboratory testing to diagnose disease and to investigate disease problems based in part on that.
00:00:59 Anne Seaton
Work we provide.
00:01:01 Anne Seaton
Disease surveillance for the Scottish Government and that's across the range of livestock species, so cattle, sheep, pigs and various miscellaneous species, poultry game birds as well.
00:01:15 Anne Seaton
But a key part of that surveillance, as well as just the testing, is relationships that we have with vets.
00:01:21 Anne Seaton
Practise and with our farming clients. And so there's a key bit around investigating problems and investigating.
00:01:31 Anne Seaton
And when things have gone wrong, but also another big part of what we do is running the health schemes, so helping farmers produce healthy, sustainable livestock, we've got a wide range of customers, so practises and farmers and that's within Scotland and the rest of.
00:01:50 Anne Seaton
GB in Northern Ireland, but we also work directly with breed societies with other laboratories with pharmaceutical companies.
00:02:00 Anne Seaton
Biotech companies as well, so a range of customers on the livestock.
00:02:06 Anne Seaton
Need we also serve as companion animal and practises run a quality assurance scheme for companion animal practises and provide leading CPD to their new practitioners. So it's a wide range of services that we provide and that's.
00:02:27 Anne Seaton
And liberty.
00:02:27 John Scholefield
That's great. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you.
00:02:29 John Scholefield
And in terms of how you operate then you know where SAIC vet services are based. You know how many staff do you have can you tell us a bit more about that?
00:02:38 Anne Seaton
Yes, sure. So we're basically we're based across Scotland and that's in terms of our disease surveillance and relationship with our practises.
00:02:46 Anne Seaton
That's one of the one of our key elements. So we've got post-mortem sites in Aberdeen, St Boswells and.
00:02:55 Anne Seaton
Dumfries. There's also a post mortem site that's run in conjunction with Glasgow School of any Medicine. And there's that. And that is in just at the campus.
00:03:08 Anne Seaton
There's a post mortem room in Thurso and that's supported by the local practise, and we carry out some postmortems not on livestock species, but companion animals, wild animals, wild birds at Pentland Science Park, just outside Edinburgh. And there's three surveillance hubs.
00:03:29 Anne Seaton
The VFIO's maintaining the contacts for the practises and the farmers in Perth, Inverness and air.
00:03:35 Anne Seaton
The main testing facility we have, the Bitmain Analytical Laboratories, it's Co located with the modern Research Institute, which is very useful collaboration there at the Perelman Science Park.
00:03:48 Anne Seaton
Overall, we've got.
00:03:51 Anne Seaton
There's around 120 staff with about 23 vets, 50 scientists who also would be officer people involved in the animal health planning, data managers, et cetera.
00:04:03 Anne Seaton
And they and the team that teams supporting the submission and registration of the health scheme samples and also the clinical pathology samples, so quite wide range, quite geographical distribution and a variety of different expertise and.
00:04:22 Anne Seaton
Professions involved.
00:04:24 John Scholefield
Thank you. And in terms of the testing itself, what is offered by SRUC veterinary services?
00:04:31 Anne Seaton
Again, quite a range. So not only do we carry out testing on veterinary samples from livestock and companion animals, but we also carry out testing on soils feeds organic wastes in the chemistry section. So in the veterinary and analytical laboratory.
00:04:48 Anne Seaton
We've got experienced teams working in molecular biology, serology, chemistry, Bio-Chem.
00:04:55 Anne Seaton
Chemistry, microbiology, parasitology and histopathology. They're primarily involved in analysing veterinary samples. The chemistry team dealing more with the the the non veterinary samples. In addition, there's the, the, the, the VSA team, which are essentially the sample reception and processing.
00:05:15 Anne Seaton
MATBA.
00:05:17 Anne Seaton
There's a team at Saint Boswells who are registering the health scheme samples and team in Penang Science Park that's involved in the Clean path and soils, etcetera. Coming in there. Yeah. And I think it's just worth mentioning that the the majority of the.
00:05:37 Anne Seaton
The work that's carried out is UCAS, credited given that sort of level of rigour and quality assurance that we need and for our test.
00:05:48 John Scholefield
Great. Thank you. And can you tell us about the livestock disease surveillance side of what you do?
00:05:55 Anne Seaton
Yeah, sure. So that's all. It's always been key function of VET services over time to provide that and disease surveillance and the reason that that, that.
00:06:07 Anne Seaton
The government need it is a in order to.
00:06:11 Anne Seaton
Give assurances about disease freedom to permit international trade, and it's a lot of. It's also about awareness of new or emerging conditions as well as assessment of potential risks both in the livestock population and in relation to human.
00:06:33 Anne Seaton
So SRUC provides expert advice on the surveillance infrastructure in place, and it's increasingly important because with climate change, and in particular, it's already altering patterns.
00:06:51 Anne Seaton
Of disease that.
00:06:52 Anne Seaton
That we've seen. So we need to take very proactive way to proactive approach to assessing the surveillance that we've got in place.
00:07:00 Anne Seaton
To make sure that we can.
00:07:03 Anne Seaton
Protect the livestock health in the country so there's disease invested. As I said already, disease investigations carried out on carcasses and that's really underpinned disease surveillance work for a long time and there's very strong networks amongst the.
00:07:23 Anne Seaton
Scientists and the vets within SoC vet services.
00:07:28 Anne Seaton
And colleagues in a PHA and elsewhere in GB and elsewhere in Europe that provides a very comprehensive early warning system of an intelligence based system of disease. But changing disease patterns or potential risks.
00:07:48 Anne Seaton
The other thing that we're increasingly doing is looking at data to provide us with.
00:07:57 Anne Seaton
Because there are blind spots in that sort of traditional post-mortem and sample based approach, we're increasingly looking at data and syndromic developments and the surveillance, surveillance and intelligence unit that's being developed with colleagues in.
00:08:16 Anne Seaton
At the Centre for Epidemiology and Planetary Health, Safe in Inverness.
00:08:22 Anne Seaton
We're looking to create a A resilient infrastructure that builds not only on the power of the networks and infrastructure we have in place, but goes beyond that to areas that that traditional type of disease surveillance is less good at, where it's less good at picking up signals.
00:08:42 Anne Seaton
So it never stands still and it's a A at this point. Particularly emphasis on getting into.
00:08:53 Anne Seaton
And utilising that data, that will give us early warnings or potential signals about incidents that are occurring. So we can then investigate them.
00:09:05 John Scholefield
Thank you. So when it comes to things like innovation, research and development, how important is that to the role of SRUC veterinary services?
00:09:16 Anne Seaton
It's. Yeah, it's good question. It's critical cause. Yeah, we can't. We can't stand still diagnostic.
00:09:22 Anne Seaton
Techniques and disease patterns are always changing and we're always looking for new ways to tackling this infectious disease and livestock. And there's history of developing tests and processes as well to enable us to handle samples.
00:09:41 Anne Seaton
Efficiently and to able to enable us to diagnose.
00:09:45 Anne Seaton
To get better diagnostics of infectious disease and deal with condition new conditions that have as they get identified and there's often collaboration with the modern Research Institute in that they are often involved in the initial development of disease diagnostics.
00:10:04 Anne Seaton
Before they move over to us.
00:10:09 Anne Seaton
To run on a larger scale and in terms of scale, one of the key things that are to the key things that have happened over time is the introduction of robotics and in handling samples cause that's meant that we can handle the the throughput in the most efficient way and developing.
00:10:27 Anne Seaton
Old testing. Both of those things have meant that the competitiveness of what we're what we're doing can be maintained and we can actually handle the throughputs, the that we are presented with cause it's up to 3/4 of a million samples goes through the vet services.
00:10:44 Anne Seaton
Labs per annum. So yeah, we need to develop ways of handling that.
00:10:52 Anne Seaton
Don't rely on individual pipetting of samples, which just not be practical in those circumstances. Just recent examples of the changes that are ongoing is Gareth and his team in chemistry have set up a new.
00:11:12 Anne Seaton
Analyzer which gives us a bit of resilience and also gives us a little bit more speed in terms of the testing of soils and the serology team have taken on taking in-house sheep's catalyser, so we're always.
00:11:32 Anne Seaton
Looking to develop things, but yeah, fundamentally vet services about is about a lot more than just providing the test results and the interpretations.
00:11:43 Anne Seaton
So we've also been involved for quite a while in various ways with.
00:11:50 Anne Seaton
Researchers, some within SRUC, some out with SRUC. It's something we're looking to build, but we already we have a good, strong place to build from because there are very good Connexions between members of our team and others with an SRUC.
00:12:10 Anne Seaton
There's also increasingly collaboration and working, either just as a commercial arrangement where we're carrying out tests for others. But yeah, working with.
00:12:20 Anne Seaton
Other research organisations, so by tangents for example, were also based in the Pentland Science Park. We've been assisting them both, the molecular team and the microbiology team have been assisting them in developing of their diagnostic techniques based more on the our ability to carry out post mortems and the coverage of the country we've also.
00:12:40 Anne Seaton
Worked with Sasa to support their project to provide them with the post mortem work when they were investigating land predation.
00:12:48 Anne Seaton
And.
00:12:50 Anne Seaton
Potentially involvement of various species in lamb predation. Another thing that is really great value that we see within SRU.
00:12:57 Anne Seaton
Seeing beyond is our contact with practises and farmers, which can mean that researchers can get a lot more impact impacts from what they're doing by because we can use these leverage these contacts.
00:13:11 Anne Seaton
There are a lot of both practitioners and farmers who are more than happy to get involved in various projects and investigations.
00:13:19 Anne Seaton
You know, particularly when it's something that is of interest to them and we very often have these contacts that.
00:13:25 Anne Seaton
That we can use.
00:13:27 Anne Seaton
And beyond that, we've got large quantities of stored data around the testing and around the health schemes that historical data.
00:13:38 Anne Seaton
We've also got things like the pathogen bank where we have bacteria stored on beads that can be used and is being used.
00:13:47 Anne Seaton
And death.
00:13:48 Anne Seaton
Has taken that forward to ensure that we've got a, a strong resource there that can be accessed for people investigating different bacteria.
00:13:59 Anne Seaton
So yeah, I a lot of Connexions and a lot of assets that we have that would be value to within SRUC and elsewhere.
00:14:09 John Scholefield
So obviously you've talked about in input from the industry there, but when it comes back to sharing knowledge and expertise to help to help the industry, how does vet services achieve that?
00:14:21 Anne Seaton
Yeah. And it's, I think that's the again one is, it's also one of the key parts. It's is that the the link back out as well.
00:14:29 Anne Seaton
So there's a there's the ongoing day-to-day interactions that BI's. Have we have a system of duty vets. So we've got our vets available.
00:14:41 Anne Seaton
On the phone to discuss.
00:14:44 Anne Seaton
Either sample results or I guess more crisply investigations and support practitioners with their investigations, and so the knowledge that they have, they are using that on a day-to-day basis to inform the conversations with our practitioners.
00:15:02 Anne Seaton
We also focus on getting that the messages back out from the silence messages from.
00:15:09 Anne Seaton
The work we've done getting those back out to practitioners through whether that's through the newsletters, one of the things we've done traditionally, it's been with meetings and practise visits. The other thing it's obviously become far more.
00:15:23 Anne Seaton
Common particularly sort of pushed on by the pandemic, was using webinars and we run a series of it's just at least one a month of webinars and pass that information back out to the.
00:15:37 Anne Seaton
To the practises, usually based around specific disease issues can be also about disease trends or changes in diagnostics or discussion around control strategies.
00:15:51 Anne Seaton
So there's also part of the cycle that's involved with the with the surveillance is also in these conversations that we're that the the guys are having with the practitioners is intelligence gathering that all feeds into.
00:16:04 Anne Seaton
And an understanding of the pattern of diseases that are as they recurring and whether things are changing on this or more formal structured side vet services also runs a series of vet new CPD courses. So we've got.
00:16:24 Anne Seaton
Courses on infectious diseases that so we can use the the the expertise that we have and the particular expertise that RBI's have within diagnostics to present that to practitioners in these courses that on infectious.
00:16:41 Anne Seaton
Diseases and sheep.
00:16:42 Anne Seaton
Cattle. We also called the health planning managing respiratory disease, parasite control and sheep and cattle are the current ones that we that that we have.
00:16:53 Anne Seaton
And it's not all about practitioners, because we also are involved in teaching and so teaching and apprenticeships.
00:17:04 Anne Seaton
An education in a in a variety of ways.
00:17:06 Anne Seaton
So we've were involved in teaching SRUC students both Fe and undergrads around with about livestock disease and the scientific staff are also involved in apprenticeships, so we, with them apprentices coming from local high schools.
00:17:26 Anne Seaton
And get the opportunity to work alongside the experts in our labs to be exposed to that work and learn.
00:17:34 Anne Seaton
So it's a broad range that that we do provide and there is probably more that we can be provided in that area as well.
00:17:42 Anne Seaton
I think I guess.
00:17:45 Anne Seaton
One of the other key links that we have there is with consulting colleagues and the farmer's advisory service.
00:17:52 Anne Seaton
So our team are very often involved in presenting material to farmers, whether that be through fast TV or events on farms, et cetera. So yeah, the, the, the bottom line is that.
00:18:05 Anne Seaton
The the greatest asset assets that we that we have across VET services is our people cause the the enthusiasm they have for what they do.
00:18:14 Anne Seaton
And the drive to make a difference to livestock farmers in the wider rural economy in Scotland and beyond that is one of our major assets. We really do have a very good team of scientists, vets and sports staff across VET services.
00:18:32 John Scholefield
Right. Thank you very much. That's. Yeah, that's a fantastic overview of the whole of veterinary services. So yeah, I'd just like to say thanks very much for your time and for.
00:18:41 John Scholefield
Explaining all of that.
00:18:43 Anne Seaton
Thank you.