Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 28 October 2021 to Questions 62622 and 62623, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of implementing (a) community testing, (b) point-of-care testing and (c) wider antiviral treatment into the flu pathway.

The Department is currently assessing the scope to include testing for Influenza alongside existing community testing for SARS-CoV-2.

We are not currently assessing the potential merits of implementing point-of-care testing for flu and we have not made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing wider antiviral treatment into the flu pathway.