This month is a momentous occasion as we commemorate 10 years since APHA was established in its current form.
In 2014, the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency combined with elements of the Food and Environment Research Agency, forming a dedicated agency for animal, plant, and bee health. Now, a decade later, we proudly stand as the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), reflecting on our many successes.
There are many achievements to celebrate as One APHA. Here are a few:
“Back at APHA's inception in 2014, there were just over 2,000 colleagues, brought together to help make sure the United Kingdom was able to adapt to changing government policy and ready for any emergency responses required. And what a job we have done so far!
Looking back over the past ten years – and the Agency having to deal with avian influenza, bluetongue, yellow legged hornets, exiting the European Union, implementing Great Britain plant passports, a pandemic, lots of technology changes, and much more change and challenge – you realise just how much APHA has achieved in this short amount of time. Throughout all the challenge we remain world-renowned for our science and animal and plant health expertise, now growing to a team of over 3,200 colleagues.
For me, this is a real opportunity to reflect on all that APHA has accomplished over ten years.
Over the next ten years, APHA will continue to adapt and transform, with our Sustainable Futures strategy setting out the clear ambitions and outcomes we are aiming for. We’ll certainly get to see some exciting things come to fruition, including the construction of the Science Hub at Weybridge.
It is not just the big projects that will bring about transformation, however. Every colleague has a part to play in shaping the Agency for the future and I encourage staff to continue to find ways for us to be even better. By doing this, I am sure we will have just as much to reflect back on in ten years’ time.
I am really proud to work as part of the Agency.”
Jenny Stewart
APHA Chief Executive Officer (Interim)
“So, 10 years at APHA – where to even start?
Like many staff at APHA, I have been here for the whole of the last decade, in fact, I reached 40 years of service this year, being part of all our different predecessor organisations: Central Veterinary Laboratories, Veterinary Laboratories Agency and Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
I have been Director of Science Capability for the last four years, but when we formed APHA I was Head of our Pathology Department which sits within the Science Directorate. As a ‘new’ agency we went through some significant changes, as well as much upheaval and transformation. These changes affected us as an organisation, as teams and as individuals, with the different areas trying to work out where we fitted together and, as always, prioritising delivery of our vital day jobs.
Together, we have achieved so much over the last 10 years, and we have met some enormous challenges head on – not least of which was EU Exit. We had to assess the impacts and implement numerous new systems at our borders and hand over our three long-standing EU Reference labs to Italy (I was Director of the Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) Reference lab at the time). We implemented a Surveillance 2014 regional lab rationalisation, had to function effectively throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, respond to increasing disease outbreaks (largest avian influenza outbreak on record, Bluetongue, a huge amount of work on bovine tuberculosis across the agency, exotic beetles and yellow legged hornets, preparing for and consulted on new diseases, Schmallenberg, Monkeypox, Ebola in Sierra Leone), won several Gold medals at Chelsea, and throughout this, survived numerous austerity measures, campaigned to secure funding to progress site redevelopment at our Weybridge site, a new Sustainable Futures strategy, and all the while continuing to grow at pace.So, we really are an amazing and resilient expert organisation, with a brilliant team with so much to be proud of and celebrate. Our mission statement, developed at the birth of APHA really does capture what we do, “protecting animal and plant health to benefit people, the economy and environment”. We should all feel proud of as we mark a decade of APHA – and I want to extend a huge thank you to all staff for contributing to us protecting the United Kingdom from these threats.
Yvonne Spencer
APHA Director of Science Capability
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