Code of Practice: Monitoring the welfare of laboratory animals

Status: Optimazations are needed in various aspects of welfare monitoring, along with adjustments to the legal framework and the framing of the discomfort score.In 2000, the then Inspectorate for Health Protection, Commodities and Veterinary Public Health issued a CoP on welfare monitoring in laboratory animals. The aim of this CoP is to provide all stakeholders with insight into factors associated with the welfare of laboratory animals and the monitoring of welfare. The CoP implements the legal obligation to design an experiment in such a way that laboratory animals suffer as little as possible. This is ensured by providing everyone involved in the design, evaluation, and conduct of animal experiments with the necessary information.

The Code of Practice for monitoring the welfare of laboratory animals addresses welfare monitoring of laboratory animals during the following phases of the research cycle: research plan, working protocol, welfare evaluation and registration. Discomfort is also addressed as it arises during the experiment, breeding, or housing.

Find the CoP on monitoring of welfare here*.