We provide a narrative history of the first government scheme to assess wildlife health in England and Wales. The Diseases of Wildlife Scheme started on a trial basis in 1998. It became established due to the significant national disease challenges from highly pathogenic avian influenza virus and West Nile virus. The development of the scheme reflected UK Government guidance on animal disease surveillance and also external published guidance, particularly from the European Wildlife Disease Association and the World Organisation for Animal Health. Within 11 years of starting this work it was sufficiently important to the government in England, that a national wildlife health strategy was produced. The England Wildlife Health Strategy provided further guidance incorporating the government’s expectations. One of the provisions of the Strategy was that the extensive range of wild species and diseases needed to be covered by a partnership of government and non-government organisations, with complementary specialisms. A further challenge was to forge an essential collaboration between the Animal Health and the Biodiversity departments of government. The history of the scheme reflects, at different levels, changes in wildlife health across Europe over the past 25 years, and the responses to deal with them. We reviewed the development and aims of wildlife health surveillance and use this to suggest a definition of national wildlife health surveillance. It is hoped that the lessons learnt may inform others in Europe and beyond, who are building surveillance schemes in this changing field.