An independent government oversight review has found that the UK’s stewardship regime for professional rodenticide use has delivered important safeguards for human health, animal health and the environment, and should continue but with strengthened monitoring and support for users.
The review was carried out by the UK Rodenticide Stewardship Government Oversight Group (GOG), a cross-government body chaired by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on behalf of its members. HSE is publishing the review’s findings on behalf of GOG.
The GOG review found that the stewardship approach has delivered clear benefits. It has put in place effective governance of the supply chain, ensuring professional rodenticide products are only sold through approved outlets to trained users operating as part of an integrated pest management strategy. It has also built a more competent workforce, improving users’ understanding of, and approach to, rodent control, and established consistent monitoring that allows the environmental impacts of rodenticide use to be measured and assessed.
Importantly, the review also found that stewardship has not yet delivered a measurable reduction in total second generation anticoagulant rodenticide residues in barn owls compared with the pre-stewardship baseline, meaning a key performance measure has not been met. The GOG review is clear that this finding does not mean risk has gone unmitigated and does not represent an overall failure of stewardship. Without the steps already taken to improve workforce competence and restrict access to trained, competent users, GOG’s view is that the risks to human health, animal health and the environment would likely be greater than they are today.
GOG has recommended that stewardship, and the Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use UK (CRRU UK) regime, should continue, but be strengthened. Additional measures include extending environmental monitoring, funding new analysis of residues, developing further insight into key user groups, and improving how information is delivered to users.
Richard Daniels, Director of Chemicals Regulation Division at HSE said:
“Anticoagulant rodenticides are powerful tools, which would not normally be approved. They are only authorised for use because they are essential to protect human health, animal health and the environment from the serious risks posed by rodent infestations. That is precisely why it’s so important that they are used responsibly.
“This independent review reports that stewardship is working in putting significant safeguards in place, ensuring these products reach only trained, competent users who understand how to use them safely and effectively.
“HSE will now consider the Oversight Group’s report and recommendations in strengthening the scheme further, for example through better monitoring and support for those who use these products when it considers, alongside other information, whether rodenticides should continue to be authorised for use.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- The UK Rodenticide Stewardship Government Oversight Group (GOG) is an independent, cross-government body. HSE chairs the group and is publishing this report on its behalf.
- The Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use UK (CRRU UK) is an industry-led stewardship scheme introduced in 2016.
- Anticoagulant rodenticides are among the most effective tools available for controlling rats and mice, but their toxicity means they do not meet the normal criteria for authorisation under biocides legislation. They are permitted only because the active substances they contain have been assessed as essential to prevent serious danger to human health, animal health and the environment, and because not authorising them would cause disproportionate harm to society compared with the risks of their use. This conclusion was reached by the European Commission in 2017 and remains the basis for their continued availability.
- In 2016, industry introduced the Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use UK (CRRU UK) stewardship regime to minimise exposure and the risk to people, animals and the environment, restricting supply of professional products to trained, competent users and requiring ongoing environmental monitoring.
- At the time, government and industry agreed the scheme would be reviewed after 5 years to assess whether it was delivering its intended benefits, including a measurable reduction in rodenticide residues found in barn owls, used as a sentinel species for wider environmental exposure.
- HSE is currently carrying out routine renewal assessments of anticoagulant rodenticide products. The conclusions and recommendations of the GOG report will be taken into account as part of this decision-making process.
- Government Oversight Group report is available here.