# What is the Food Surveillance Programme? The Food Surveillance Programme aims to continue the work done by the PATH-SAFE programme to improve national surveillance of foodborne diseases and antimicrobial resistance through environmental sampling & DNA sequencing. It has continued development of the National Foodborne Genomic Data Platform, which is an operationally-focused data platform which standardises assembly and analysis of pathogen isolates from several organisations, with a particular focus on key foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella. ## Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and Environment (PATH-SAFE) Programme This exemplar National FBD Genomic Data Platform was a cross-government effort aiming to improve the characterisation and tracking of FBD pathogens and AMR, share information, and connect government and public data. The platform provides genomic analytics to support the identification of clusters of interest, visualised in user-friendly reports. The design and features of this have been derived from extensive end-user research and evidence-building, aiming to provide maximum value and impact for users. This work has been conducted through the **Path**ogen **S**urveillance in **A**griculture, **F**ood and **E**nvironment (PATH-SAFE) and the Food Surveillance research programmes. More information can be found on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) sites: ### Background Foodborne diseases (FBD) present a significant public health threat, causing 2.4 million individual illnesses and over 16,000 hospitalisations annually. The primary culprits are a few bacteria entering the food chain from farmed animals or the environment. Beyond FBD, the agri-food supply chain is a potential conduit for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) transmission through food, animals, humans, and water. Despite the UK's progress in reducing antibiotic use in humans and animals, drug-resistant bloodstream infections surged by 32% from 2015 to 2019, contributing to the emergence of untreatable 'superbugs.' To address these challenges, the UK government has leveraged technological and data management advancements to enhance surveillance and safeguard public health. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://cgps.gitbook.io/pathogenwatch/path-safe/what-is-the-path-safe-programme.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.