Prospect concerned at threat to Scotland's Disease Surveillance caability

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Prospect, the Union for Professionals, specialists and managers at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), have expressed serious concerns at the effect on jobs and the subsequent risk to animal disease prevention as Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) announced significant changes to their veterinary service provision.

Prospect are calling on SRUC and the Scottish Government to urgently review proposals that will see the closure of regional post-mortem facilities across the country, resulting in the loss of key scientific, research and analytical expertise vital for disease control.

Cow and sheep in farm field

Jane Rose, Prospect Negotiations Officer said:

“The Disease Surveillance work undertaken by our members at SRUC is critical to ensuring Scotland is able to react quickly to disease outbreaks, particularly in zoonotic infections such as swine and avian flu that carry a risk to human health. Closing regional centres severely compromises that ability, escalates the risk of spread and contamination, as well as significantly adding to our carbon footprint as transportation distances of potentially contaminated materials will inevitably increase. 

The SRUC proposals are the direct result of the Scottish Governments decision to slash over £1million from the disease surveillance budget.

The potential loss of over 30 key posts across the country will have an immediate and significant impact on Scotland’s capacity in animal disease prevention, detection, diagnosis and containment. Whilst we will work closely with SRUC to mitigate any potential redundancies the impact is clearly worrying.

In light of these proposals, Prospect are calling on the Scottish Government to urgently review their decision to drastically reduce the funding provided to SRUC and instead ensure that the essential work carried out by our members can continue, our valuable livestock sector is protected and the risk to human health is safeguarded.”