e application of what we know.
- We were working directly with a vet for much of the time and this helped to build a very good understanding of the business need from their perspective. While that still needs more validation with other vets and also greater exploration of the needs of other user groups – it is a very powerful starting point.
- The work also helped to drive out some of the potential technical problems. In particular Defra is only just starting to implement a new technical framework within the broader Digital Transformation programme. The organisation's cloud strategy is at an early stage, and this meant it was not really possible to access the tools from within the existing network.
- There are still challenges around accessing the data. The sources we were using came from separate organisations and, because they included elements that, with a bit of additional digging, could be used to identify individual farms, the organisations rightly had concerns about their sharing, even internally.
- There were also obvious problems around some aspects of the quality of the data. Again this reflects constituent organisations managing data for their own needs rather than looking at what the whole of Defra might find useful.
Overall, and most importantly, the work showed the benefits of making better use of data and the strong desire of the business to push the work forward.
It doesn't stop there
While the focus of the work is on bringing data sources together to tackle Bovine TB, improving access to the same data sources will have a wealth of other benefits. Knowing the densities of cattle and how they are changing is also important for air pollution (cattle are a major source of ammonia and methane) and water quality. The data would also underpin planning broader farm inspections including providing operational staff with the right information during a farm visit.
What happens next?
This work is now moving into an 'alpha' build. During this phase we will:
- Implement a more strategic solution to the cloud platform
- Completing the business analysis including looking at other areas of the business that use the data such as epidemiology and data science/modelling
- Agreeing a robust access policy for the data, including what can be shared externally
- Establish mechanism to replicate data from source systems into a cloud environment
- Implement a production version of modern reporting tool
The initial focus will be on the generation of reports for each farm, summarising disease history and animal movements for each property to support farmers and external vets in making better decisions at the farm level. The mechanisms we implement for this will allow us to make significant leaps in other areas
This is an excellent opportunity for APHA to move into a smarter and more up-to-date way of treating its data as a key asset, and establishing a single source of information that can be used quickly and flexibly. I’m excited by the possibilities this piece of work could bring to bTB control and prevention, and also how we can use and apply the learning and principles more widely in other areas of APHA.
— Marc Cartwright, Senior Change Manager, Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)
Great to see the farm TB data pack being delivered and the prospect for even greater transformation in our use of data to understand bovine TB risks.
— Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer for the UK