New Healthy Feet Programme Risk Assessment Tool

You have probably noticed that Healthy Feet Programme (HFP) materials have changed colour. Gone are the oranges and yellows of Dairy Co (so yesterday!), replaced by the greens, blues and greys of AHDB.

The changes go beyond skin-deep too; the HFP resources have been thoroughly overhauled and improved to take into account feedback received plus new science around lameness management.

One of the main aspects to delivering the HFP is to do an in-depth farm walk and risk assessment. This has always been guided by using checklists in four key areas (the HFP Success Factors), but now the checklists are more detailed, with a score-system which can be used to tie into the farm’s lameness map, a bit like a balanced scorecard.

The idea is that overall risk scores for the different success factors can be calculated, plus an overall lameness risk score for the farm. It makes it easier to identify the most important areas for change, which should always be linked to the most prevalent lesion types for the farm. A score card approach can also help see changes over time, and how priorities should be shifted as progress is made in some areas.

Some of the pages of the Risk Assessment tool are shown here, but the full thing can be downloaded for use from this dropbox link. This folder also contains the other HFP resources, and can be accessed here until they have been migrated to a Mobility Mentors’ page which is planned for the AHDB website.

Fig 1: The new look, feel and colour palate of the HFP Risk Assessment Tool.

Fig 2: The risk assessment questionnaire for Success Factor two.

Fig 3: Using the Balanced Scorecard approach to summarise the farm’s main lameness risks.