The Animal Health Distributors Association’s annual conference returned to Birmingham last week after a three-year break, welcoming over 400 SQPs to the two-day event.
The extensive programme of seminars and workshops covered topics related to management of farm, equine and companion animals. Alongside the extensive speaker programme, over 50 animal health companies, including veterinary medicine manufacturers and suppliers and industry bodies such as AMTRA, COWS, SCOPS and VMD, exhibited their products and services.
In the keynote address on Monday, John Millward, head of the Inspections and Enforcement Division at the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD), gave an insight into the upcoming consultation of the new Veterinary Medicines Regulations.
During the past year, AHDA has focussed on a project of work to ‘Enhance Responsible Prescribing’, with the theme for this year’s conference being ‘Working for Positive Change’. The programme on day one included workshops on the topic of responsible prescribing, with AHDA partnering with veterinary medicine manufacturers and SCOPS to deliver interactive workshops for conference delegates on the topic.
This included a closer look at the prescribing process, in association with AMTRA, customer interactions, faecal egg counting and animal medicine planning.
“The programme on day one was key for AHDA to drive forward the important message of prescribing responsibly,” says Bryan Lovegrove, AHDA secretary general.
“In raising awareness of the challenges faced by those prescribing animal medicines – particularly anthelmintic resistance – and by focussing on it at this year’s conference, we were able to bring real scenarios to life in the workshops.
“This encouraged some thoughtful and engaging conversation and will help prescribers to pass this best-practice on to the end users – their customers – so they can better understand the topic.”
Day two of the conference focussed on a range of relevant and current topics in animal health and welfare, with sessions split into ‘Farm Animal’ and ‘Companion Animal & Equine’ presentations.
