Farmers and vets will soon be able to access up-to-date veterinary medicines information on their smart phones, as the result of a new service being developed by the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH).
The development was previewed during this week’s National Farmers’ Union conference in Birmingham by NOAH’s technical executive, Donal Murphy, who said the new service will “further support responsible medicine use” on UK farms.
NOAH’s compendium of data sheets, listing vital information such as dosage, indications and withdrawal periods, has long been acknowledged as the go-to resource for prescribers of animal medicines. The sheets, which have been available free online since 2005 are regularly updated giving farmers access to changes in any information about the medicines they use.
The service is well used, attracting well over 8 million visitors since it was launched and currently running at around 2500 visits a day.Â
The plan now, however, is to take the service on to the next delivery stage.
“We have a project underway developed to help vets and farmers access information about medicines on their smart phones,” said Mr Murphy. “This will give easy and fast ‘off-line’ access to up-to-date veterinary medicines information, even when you are out of signal and can’t access the compendium website.
“We believe this new development will further support responsible medicine use as it will give an easy reference to check dose rate and indications for use. It will also help compliance with food chain requirements such as the withdrawal period.”
He added that the new service will be available “soon”.