Farmers: how to apply for funding to improve animal health and welfare
Apply for funding for a vet to visit your farm to reduce endemic diseases and conditions, increase animal productivity and improve animal welfare.
Applies to England
This service forms part of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. It will provide payments to livestock keepers to fund farm visits by vets.
To get funding, you must have an Improve Animal Health and Welfare (IAHW) agreement. Before you start any actions from welfare reviews or follow-up visits, make sure the agreement is in place.
You can get funding for a vet, or a team chosen by a vet, to visit your farm if you keep:
- beef cattle
- dairy cattle
- pigs
- sheep
A vet, or a team chosen by a vet, can do these visits. If you are a farmer who is a vet, you cannot carry out your own visit, you must use another vet.
There are 2 parts to the service:
- animal health and welfare review
- endemic disease follow-up
You can choose the vet you want to do these. The review and follow-up are not an inspection or audit.
All your reviews and follow-ups must be done on the same species.
What you could get
You’ll get funding for whichever species you choose, not for each animal.
| Species | Animal health and welfare review funding | Endemic disease follow-up funding |
|---|---|---|
| Pigs | £557 | £923 |
| Sheep | £436 | £639 |
| Beef cattle | £522 | £837 for a follow-up with a persistently infected (PI) hunt or £215 for a follow up without a PI hunt |
| Dairy cattle | £372 | £1714 for a follow-up with a persistently infected (PI) hunt or £215 for a follow up without a PI hunt |
The funding amount for each species is different because some tests cost more to do.
The funding will contribute to:
- the cost of testing
- your time and the vet’s time
As part of your IAHW agreement, you can have up to:
- 3 reviews on the same herd or flock
- 3 follow-ups on the same herd or flock as the review
The service ends on 19 June 2027. Your review and follow-up visits must be done by then. You must submit your claims by 19 September 2027.
Animal health and welfare review
During a review, the vet will:
- test for endemic disease (for cattle and pigs)
- test the effectiveness of medicines to treat worms (for sheep)
- advise you on how to improve animal health and welfare
- advise you on how to increase animal productivity
- discuss any other topics that are important to you
After the vet has completed a review, you can choose to have an endemic disease follow-up.
Endemic disease follow-up
You can only do a follow-up after you have done a review. You may also prefer to claim successfully for the review before you organise a follow-up. The follow-up must be on the same species as the review.
During a follow-up, the vet will:
- do more in-depth disease testing based on your review results (cattle and pigs)
- do disease testing or condition assessments based on farm health priorities (sheep)
- do a biosecurity assessment
The vet will also advise you on further steps to:
- control and prevent disease
- improve animal health and welfare
- improve animal productivity
Who can get funding
You must have a minimum number of animals each time the vet visits your farm. You must have one of the following:
- 11 or more beef cattle
- 11 or more dairy cattle
- 51 or more pigs
- 21 or more sheep
You can still apply for funding if you got a lump sum payment to leave or retire from farming.
You must:
- claim only for livestock registered in England
- be responsible for the welfare of your livestock when the vet does a review or follow-up
- claim only for businesses with a single business identifier (SBI) linked to a county parish holding (CPH) number
The CPH number must be registered in England. The CPH number cannot be:
- an 8,000 number used for abattoirs, pet food manufacturers, racing pigeon establishments and showgrounds
- a 9,000 number used for poultry keepers
Timing of reviews and follow-ups
You can do up to 3 reviews and 3 follow-ups as part of your IAHW agreement.
You must follow the correct timing at each step to be eligible to claim. We recommend you follow this sequence:
At each step you choose to complete, you must follow the relevant timing rules to be eligible to claim.
1. Do a review
If you do a review:
- you must have an IAHW agreement in place before carrying out a review, including any sampling or testing
- you should ensure there are at least 10 months between your reviews (the date the vet last visited your farm)
2. Claim for a review
3. Do a follow-up
If you do a follow-up, you must:
- have an IAHW agreement in place before carrying out a follow-up, including any sampling or testing
- do the follow-up no more than 10 months after the associated review
- ensure there are at least 10 months between follow-ups
4. Claim for a follow-up
You need to have successfully claimed for your review before you claim for the associated follow-up.
5. Repeat this sequence for your second and third reviews and follow-ups
What to do if you completed a review in the old annual health and welfare review service
You must:
- have an IAHW agreement in place before carrying out a follow-up, including any sampling or testing
- claim for any previous reviews carried out in the old annual health and welfare review service to be eligible to set up an IAHW agreement
- carry out a follow-up within 10 months of the previous review visit
- carry out the follow-up on the same species as the review
- wait until 10 months after your last review before doing a new review under this agreement. This applies even if your review claim was rejected
Start your application
Apply for funding to improve animal health and welfare.
Get help with your application
For more help with applying for this service, you can watch this video. It shows you how to apply and how to find all the information farmers and vets need.
Contact the Rural Payments Agency if you:
- cannot apply online
- have a question about your application
You can scan and attach documents in an email and send them to us. Or you can post them to our address. You should:
- use ‘IAHW’ in the email subject heading
- put your SBI and IAHW agreement number on everything you send to us
Rural Payments Agency
PO Box 352
Worksop
S80 9FG
Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk
Telephone: 03000 200 301
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm, except public holidays
Funding to improve animal health and welfare: guidance for farmers and vets
Updates to this page
Published 19 June 2024Last updated 6 February 2025 + show all updates
-
Update to emphasise that you must have an agreement in place. Update to include the final date that claims can be made. Correction for clarity to show the follow-ups are now on all cattle. Some minor corrections to fix service names.
-
Information about persistently infected (PI) hunt updates and endemic disease follow-ups for dairy cattle added. Clarity on who should do the vet visit if the farmer is also a vet added.
-
We have added more detailed information about the agreements that must be in place and what will happen during the vet visits.
-
We have added a link to video guidance to help you apply.
-
Clarification added in 'Timing of reviews and follow-ups', for farmers who have completed a review in the old annual health and welfare review: You must wait until 10 months after your last review before doing a new review under this agreement. This still applies if your review claim was rejected.
-
First published.