Veterinary Lead for Toxicology, Chemical Feed & Food Safety in Surveillance Intelligence Unit
| Posting date: | 02 July 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £54,470 to £59,900 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 16 July 2025 |
| Location: | Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 2 days per week |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 413622 |
Summary
You will lead on delivery of the government-funded projects for Toxicology and Chemical Feed and Food Safety in England and Wales. Consultancy across a range of animal species and an understanding of the veterinary context within which toxicological incidents arise is essential. The primary aims of the work area are detection, investigation and characterisation of toxicology-related threats; provision of toxicology expertise to APHA and government policy customers; maintenance and development of toxicology expertise within APHA; and development of toxicology knowledge exchange networks.
You will be responsible for leading on reports relating to the subject area and contributing to the toxicology component of various other communications, as well as contributing to the continuous improvement of these outputs.
Examples of some of these reports can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/animal-disease-surveillance-reports.
As part of the wider One Health leadership cadre, you will contribute to the delivery of training and advice in the field of veterinary public health, becoming involved in incident management teams and advisory activities to a range of stakeholders and customers. You will use your skills and experience to support multidisciplinary response to zoonotic threats.
You will be responsible for building capability, expertise, and networks in key areas of our science, with a key area being the importance of One Health in respect to environmental toxicology in modern agriculture. You must possess a relevant post graduate qualification in toxicology. You will be expected to ensure continuing development of your expertise for yourself and others, to enable APHA to maintain capability and resilience, and adapt to our customers’ requirements.
As the Veterinary Lead for Toxicology and Chemical Feed and Food Safety you will:
Lead on providing consultancy and advice on toxicology and other chemical issues for Defra Group, and on the investigation of On-Farm Chemical Food Safety Incidents for the Food Standards Agency. This includes consideration of differential diagnosis for other diseases that might cause similar clinical presentations.
Interact and work cooperatively with Veterinary Investigation Officers, field teams, policy advice teams, species expert groups (SEGs) in the Surveillance Intelligence Unit (SIU), and other work groups across APHA, to ensure approaches to toxicology and chemical exposures are coordinated across APHA and with key partners.
Work with resource managers to ensure capability is developed and maintained for toxicology and Chemical Feed and Food Safety response in APHA.
Ensure that APHA is working collaboratively with other agencies and government departments appropriate to the chemical source or investigation.
Ensure that APHA is aware of analytical capabilities in the UK and elsewhere.
Provide timely advice for emergency response and incident management. This will include participation in an out of hours rota of suitably informed vets in APHA to offer advice in the case of an emergency.
Be familiar with risk analysis and its individual components of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication, in relation to resolving potential toxicological problems.
Use expertise to understand potential and real exposures to chemicals.
Lead on communicating and engaging with stakeholders (both within government and external and where necessary throughout the UK, Europe and worldwide) to ensure their awareness of chemical-related threats and best practice for detection and control or to respond to their queries in relation to animal health and welfare.
Be able to advise accordingly on best practice for detection of a threat in animals and contribute to risk management.
Join up activities in the area of chemical hazards across APHA, championing best practice and the professional development for colleagues working in this area.
Undertake regular horizon scanning for potential threats to the UK.
Evaluation and investigation of potential new and re-emerging toxicology-related threats and make decisions on further actions including characterisation, mitigation, communication and escalation to government risk assessment groups (including the Veterinary Risk Group, acting as risk manager for toxicology).
As part of the wider One Health leadership cadre:
Provide training to colleagues and consultancy to customers on veterinary public health matters.
Support response to zoonotic disease incidents, in line with agreements with Defra, Welsh Government, Scottish Government and public health authorities across the UK.
The post holder may be required to act as disease consultant for various diseases that have One Health significance.
You will be responsible for leading on reports relating to the subject area and contributing to the toxicology component of various other communications, as well as contributing to the continuous improvement of these outputs.
Examples of some of these reports can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/animal-disease-surveillance-reports.
As part of the wider One Health leadership cadre, you will contribute to the delivery of training and advice in the field of veterinary public health, becoming involved in incident management teams and advisory activities to a range of stakeholders and customers. You will use your skills and experience to support multidisciplinary response to zoonotic threats.
You will be responsible for building capability, expertise, and networks in key areas of our science, with a key area being the importance of One Health in respect to environmental toxicology in modern agriculture. You must possess a relevant post graduate qualification in toxicology. You will be expected to ensure continuing development of your expertise for yourself and others, to enable APHA to maintain capability and resilience, and adapt to our customers’ requirements.
As the Veterinary Lead for Toxicology and Chemical Feed and Food Safety you will:
Lead on providing consultancy and advice on toxicology and other chemical issues for Defra Group, and on the investigation of On-Farm Chemical Food Safety Incidents for the Food Standards Agency. This includes consideration of differential diagnosis for other diseases that might cause similar clinical presentations.
Interact and work cooperatively with Veterinary Investigation Officers, field teams, policy advice teams, species expert groups (SEGs) in the Surveillance Intelligence Unit (SIU), and other work groups across APHA, to ensure approaches to toxicology and chemical exposures are coordinated across APHA and with key partners.
Work with resource managers to ensure capability is developed and maintained for toxicology and Chemical Feed and Food Safety response in APHA.
Ensure that APHA is working collaboratively with other agencies and government departments appropriate to the chemical source or investigation.
Ensure that APHA is aware of analytical capabilities in the UK and elsewhere.
Provide timely advice for emergency response and incident management. This will include participation in an out of hours rota of suitably informed vets in APHA to offer advice in the case of an emergency.
Be familiar with risk analysis and its individual components of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication, in relation to resolving potential toxicological problems.
Use expertise to understand potential and real exposures to chemicals.
Lead on communicating and engaging with stakeholders (both within government and external and where necessary throughout the UK, Europe and worldwide) to ensure their awareness of chemical-related threats and best practice for detection and control or to respond to their queries in relation to animal health and welfare.
Be able to advise accordingly on best practice for detection of a threat in animals and contribute to risk management.
Join up activities in the area of chemical hazards across APHA, championing best practice and the professional development for colleagues working in this area.
Undertake regular horizon scanning for potential threats to the UK.
Evaluation and investigation of potential new and re-emerging toxicology-related threats and make decisions on further actions including characterisation, mitigation, communication and escalation to government risk assessment groups (including the Veterinary Risk Group, acting as risk manager for toxicology).
As part of the wider One Health leadership cadre:
Provide training to colleagues and consultancy to customers on veterinary public health matters.
Support response to zoonotic disease incidents, in line with agreements with Defra, Welsh Government, Scottish Government and public health authorities across the UK.
The post holder may be required to act as disease consultant for various diseases that have One Health significance.
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