The audit took place in the United Kingdom from 21 to 31 March 2017 and was undertaken as part
of the published audit programme of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health
and Food Safety. The first objective of the audit was to evaluate the implementation of the rules laid
down by European Union (EU) legislation on the harmonised monitoring and reporting of
antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in zoonotic and commensal bacteria. A second objective was to
gather information on good practices on AMR monitoring and reporting.
Overall, the report concludes that the competent authorities have developed a well-coordinated and
properly documented framework for AMR monitoring which ensures that EU requirements on
harmonised monitoring are largely complied with. Notwithstanding this, the procedures for
gathering Salmonella isolates obtained from carcasses were insufficiently detailed and thus this
element of the overall AMR monitoring programme was not as effective as it should be.
Whilst the good performance of the national reference laboratory, which tests the majority of the
reported isolates from the United Kingdom, ensures reliable results, significant deficiencies in the
performance of the Northern Ireland laboratory undermine confidence in the reliability of the results
it has generated, albeit that these data represent a small proportion of the overall testing data. The
competent authority took immediate action to address this issue.
A number of good practices and initiatives, mainly covering AMR monitoring have been identified
and therefore the overall strategy to monitor the incidence of AMR in animals and food is
strengthened.
The report contains recommendations to the United Kingdom competent authority aimed at
rectifying the shortcomings identified and enhancing the implementation of control measures in
place.
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