Dairy Hygiene Inspectorate merges with State Vet Service

The Dairy Hygiene Inspectorate has merged with the State Veterinary Service.

The authorities hope that the merger will help to simplify the inspection regimes currently operating in the United Kingdom.

The DHI function, protecting the nation’s raw milk supply from the risk of contamination and ensuring a satisfactory standard of hygiene is maintained on farms, transferred to SVS, an executive agency of DEFRA on 1 October 2006.

The merger is one of the recommendations of the Hampton Review, published in March 2005, to simplify enforcement activity and reduce the number of enforcement bodies.

It is the first in a series of mergers which begin to transform SVS into an enlarged animal health thematic agency.