Animal Health Officer - England in Penrith

As an Animal Health Officer within Animal Plant Health Office, you will play a role in protecting the UK from animal and plant related threats to human health, the economy and the environment. Are you caring, conscientious and an excellent team worker? Do you enjoy working outside? If the answer is ‘yes’, you should come and work for APHA!

We have numerous vacancies available at various locations. All posts will be offered in merit order based on location and business need. As part of the role, you will be expected to travel to the counties specified for your location and carry out the duties outlined in the Job Description. Under certain circumstances (e.g. National Disease Outbreaks) staff will be expected to work on detached duty at other locations, depending on business needs. The post holder will occasionally be required to work from other locations in the delivery area. Currently APHA has adopted a blended approach to working, allowing for a mix of some home working and office attendance.

As a field-based Animal Health Officer (AHO) your duties will include, but not limited to the following:

• Blood sampling of livestock species including cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry (after suitable training).
• Collecting blood samples from bTB breakdown cattle herds, including suckler, beef and dairy herds.
• Conduct documentation inspections on animal identification, animal movement, breeding, medicine and other written or electronic records for audit and disease control and surveillance purposes.
• Collect samples for National Surveillance Schemes including feed samples from farms, feed mills and feed merchants.
• Collection of samples on behalf of VMD.
• Collect samples and information for disease surveys including brucella and salmonella.
• Manage compliance inspections for premises handling animal by-products e.g., rendering plants, composting sites, hunt kennels and knackers' yards.
• Risk based visits to premises for egg marketing inspections including egg producers, egg packing stations, wholesalers, hatcheries and processing/boiling plants.
• Responsible for enforcement of regulations including Eggs and Chicks (England) 2009.
• Ensuring the standards are being met, particularly the quality, weight and grading of eggs and that the labelling of containers and packaging are being complied with.
• Carrying out complex record reconciliation, audit trails at packing centres and production units to check claims made on egg packs/labelling as well as egg production/sales levels.
• Play an active part in contingency planning so the agency is able to respond to outbreaks of exotic notifiable disease and other emergencies.
• Undertake allocated rostered out of hours on-call duties to deal with incidents and to support disease outbreak reports.
• During outbreaks of notifiable disease, participate as directed to contribute to the control and eradication of the disease including taking part in rosters for detached duty to other parts of Great Britain.
• Working with a diverse team, both locally and across Great Britain, including other technical colleagues, veterinary surgeons and scientists during notifiable disease outbreaks.

The exact mix of responsibilities will depend on where the successful applicant is based. Different regions require different levels of support, so duties will be adjusted to reflect local operational needs.

All successful candidates will be provided with an extensive programme of training and support as part of their induction into working with APHA. Some training will involve travel and overnight stays. APHA appreciates the varying level of experiences and skills successful candidates will hold on joining the agency. Training material is designed to ensure all new entrants to APHA build suitable confidence and competencies to deliver the work. New AHO staff will be part of regional, country and GB wide teams who will be provided with widespread support on all facets of APHA work.