Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on improving infection prevention and control practices in animals.

The Government takes a One Health approach to infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial resistance, as set out in the UK National Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance (NAP AMR) for 2019 to 2024. The UK NAP AMR delivery board is co-chaired by senior officials from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

Officials from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate meet regularly to consider appropriate actions to promote good animal health, welfare, and biosecurity in the animal health sector. This is done in accordance with the Government’s One-Health approach, to mitigating the risk of transmission of zoonotic infections between animals and humans, and to tackle the threat of antimicrobial resistance. A zoonosis is any disease or infection that is naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans.