Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to item 7 of the substantive hearing of the Conduct and Competence Committee at the Nursing and Midwifery Council of 13 and 14 September 2016 on Pauline Cafferkey that found that the evidence indicates that PHE Screening staff were not properly prepared to receive so many travellers from at risk countries, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of that finding; and what steps he plans to take to ensure health screening of such travellers is adequately planned for and resourced in future.

Working in partnership with the Border Force, Public Health England screened 14,500 passengers returning to the United Kingdom from West Africa during the Ebola outbreak. This was the first time that port of entry screening for an infectious disease had been implemented on this scale. The design and implementation of the screening process evolved throughout the course of the outbreak with ever more accurate information being gathered from partners overseas and shared in advance with the screening teams at the five major UK ports of entry.