Medicine Hub: What it is and how to use it

In recent years the livestock industry has done brilliantly in reducing antibiotics usage, and all of us in the industry believe the ruminant sector is now a pretty low antibiotics user.

According to antibiotics sales data, the UK is reckoned to be the fifth-lowest user in Europe. The problem is that there is not enough data on usage to confirm this.

Many vet practices and other groups have been collating and benchmarking antibiotics use for their farms, but there has been no national database. This is where Medicine Hub comes in.

Getting set up

Medicine Hub will allow farmers, with the help of their vet practice or other third party if required, to calculate their antibiotics usage.

Progress can then be monitored over time and benchmarked between similar types of farms, as well as forming part of the antibiotics review component of a herd health plan.

Data will only be shared anonymously, and only at a national level. For anyone else to see an individual farm’s data, the farmer must grant them access to their account.

See also: New livestock Medicine Hub – what it’s for and how it can help

These are the key steps to getting started with Medicine Hub.

• First, you need an account. This is simple to set up and the AHDB has produced a number of guides, including this one (PDF).
• Within your account you will need to set up your enterprises, which allows you to allocate your medicines to the different parts of your business. For example, we have clients with a dairy unit and a small pedigree sheep flock. Previously, all their medicine sales went on to one farm account, but we have now set up their account to allow them to specify which enterprise the medicines are for. This enables us to get an accurate picture of the antibiotics usage in each enterprise.
• To calculate your antibiotics usage, Medicine Hub needs to know the population of animals that the products were used for. There is a way for cattle farmers to simplify this by linking their account with the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS). 

Vet involvement

Many farms may find it easier to grant their vet practice full permissions to their account. This will allow the vets to help manage the farm’s Medicine Hub account as well as upload medicine sales data.

The national database is going to be a valuable tool for demonstrating that the ruminant sector is using antibiotics responsibly.

It is important to be able to demonstrate this responsible use – as much as necessary, as little as possible – to consumers, retailers and buyers, as well as in trade negotiations.