Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they have updated their future pandemic preparedness strategy, in view of the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department’s pandemic preparedness plans are kept under constant review and regularly evolve with new scientific information. We integrate learning from previous outbreaks, including COVID-19, and from rigorous testing and exercises. We continue to prepare for a range of pandemic and emerging infectious disease scenarios and aim to have robust, flexible and deployable capabilities that can be adapted to outbreaks of different scales and characteristics.

We are committed to learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and will commence a full public inquiry in spring 2022. This will be considered by the Government and a range of stakeholders, including expert advisory groups and local emergency planners, to inform our planning for potential future pandemics.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) was established on 1 October 2021 and incorporates the new Centre for Pandemic Preparedness (CPP). Working with the CPP, the UKHSA will ensure that we are protected from future health threats, including pandemics, by building on the enhanced capabilities deployed to tackle COVID-19 and other infectious disease outbreaks.