Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies on future pandemic preparedness planning of the report entitled Covid Shielding Voices published by the Centre for Epidemiology, Versus Arthritis: University of Manchester in October 2023.

We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a future pandemic or know precisely which groups will be most affected by it, and we are therefore strengthening our pandemic preparedness by considering the flexible and scalable response capabilities that can be adapted to any threat that the health and social care system may need to respond to. We continue to review our pandemic planning, in close collaboration with system partners including the UK Health Security Agency, in response to new information and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks. We continue to draw on a wide range of evidence, both from government research organisations and expert committees, as well as the wider research community

We understand that Versus Arthritis has submitted the recommendations of the Covid Shielding Voices report to the United Kingdom COVID-19 Inquiry. We are committed to learning from the Inquiry’s findings, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future.