Animal Health Officer

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 374856**Salary**:

- £28,710 - £29,810- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%**Job grade**:

- Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- APHA - Operational Delivery**Type of role**:

- Operational Delivery**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 11Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Bridgwater, Crewe, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Penrith, Preston, Stafford, WallingfordAbout the job

**Job summary**:
Are you passionate about working with animals and care for their welfare?

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

**Locations**

We have numerous vacancies for permanent appointments at the following locations:
**Aston Down (select Gloucester) - **Gloucestershire, Avon and Wiltshire

**Bridgwater**:

- Dorset and Somerset

**Crewe****:

- Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester

**Wallingford**:

- Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire

**Preston**:

- Lancashire and West Yorkshire

**Penrith** - Cleveland, Cumbria, Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland

**Lincoln** - Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire

**Stafford** - Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire

**Exeter - **Devon

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, these requests will depend 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.

**Job description**:
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 (bovine tuberculosis) breakdown cattle herds, including suckler, beef and dairy herds.
- conducting documentation inspections on animal identification, animal movement, breeding, medicine and other written or electronic records for audit and disease control and surveillance purposes.
- collecting samples for National Surveillance Schemes including feed samples from farms, feed mills and feed merchants.
- collecting samples and information for disease surveys.
- managing compliance inspections for premises handling animal by-products e.g., rendering plants, composting sites, hunt kennels and knackers' yards.
- playing an active part in contingency planning so the agency is able to respond to outbreaks of exotic notifiable disease and other emergencies.
- undertaking allocated rostered out of hours on-call duties to deal with incidents and to support disease outbreak reports.
- during outbreaks of notifiable disease, participating as directed to contribute to the control and the 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.
- risk based visits to premises for egg marketing inspections.
- enforcing of regulations including Eggs and Chicks (England) 2009.

**Person specification**:

- have an agricultural background, an agricultural qualification or have knowledge of the agricultural industry.
- have high standards of written and spoken English and can communicate effectively about animal health topics with all stakeholders including customers, service users and colleagues.
- have knowledge of basic Health and Safety and an understanding of safe working on farms and with livestock and poultry.
- are able to work alone or as part of team, to take responsibility and remain positive and focused in the face of challenge.
- have experience with excellent record keeping, auditing processes and maintaining quality.
- are able to adhere to processes and quality standards.

**Contract types**

We are advertising multiple Animal Health Officer roles across various locations.

The terms and conditions on which you will join can be discussed with the vacancy manager at the point you are matched to a role.

**Behaviours**:
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

- Communicating and Influencing

**Technical skills**:
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

- Knowledge of GB