APHA’s surveillance activities to detect disease outbreaks early are not sufficiently comprehensive or risk-based. Surveillance work, or ‘eyes and ears on the ground’, is vital to help detect new and re-emerging disease threats quickly and stop their spread. But APHA’s focus on responding to current outbreaks has resulted in a reduction in some of its surveillance activities. The Department is also concerned about the capacity of local authority trading standards officers to undertake routine surveillance work. APHA is starting the process of making its surveillance work more risk- based, efficient and supported by appropriate management information, but this will take several years. Following EU exit, the UK lost access to the EU’s animal diseases intelligence system which provided almost real-time intelligence on animal diseases within the EU. This has resulted in the UK getting information more slowly and in less detail. recommendation To ensure its surveillance activities provide the maximum benefits from the resources available, APHA should set out in the next six months a clear plan and milestones for delivering the updates to its surveillance processes that are needed to ensure they are risk-based, efficient and supported by good management information.