Alongside its response to the Covid-19 Inquiry Module 2 report, the Department for Health and Social Care has published a new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy.
Backed by around £1bn of investment in health protection measures, the strategy replaces a previous strategy for Pandemic Influenza published in 2011 and builds on wider reforms taking place through the 10 Year Health Plan.
The strategy has been directly informed by early findings from the largest ever pandemic exercise in UK history, which took place in Autumn 2025. Exercise Pegasus saw every government department, the devolved governments, arms-length bodies, local resilience forums and external stakeholders respond to the spread of a simulated pathogen over a number of weeks.
Concrete action
• PPE stockpiles will continue to be replenished with a variety of products and sizes
• Departmental pandemic response plans will be reviewed to ensure government services and critical national infrastructure can be maintained effectively in a pandemic
• An ‘All Pandemic Hazards Bill’ will be drafted to ensure the government has legislative options ready to review and introduce as necessary in response to a range of pathogens; this will sit alongside a suite of prepared options for community protection measures to support swift decision-making and prioritisation to keep people safe
• UKHSA will build a new set of services to manage large scale testing, contact tracing and other scaled public health response measures
• Chemicals and equipment stockpiles needed for testing will be built up further to protect against supply risks that could develop in the early stages of a pandemic
• Data requirements to support decision-making will be reviewed to ensure information needed in a pandemic response is available, transparent, and can be shared quickly between organisations and with the public.
Goals and desired outcomes
‘To support healthcare and adult social care systems to prevent, respond, scale and adapt,’ is one of five goals of the strategy. It seeks three outcomes.
• The NHS, adult social care sector and public health systems can quickly
adapt their systems and resources for a pandemic response
• Recovery and maintenance of business-as-usual health and adult social
care is hardwired into preparedness and response architecture
• The NHS and adult social care sector’s pandemic response is supported
by evidence-based infection prevention and control measures
The other four goals are: plan for a whole system response; strengthen community protection and build trust in communities; enhance access to clinical countermeasures; and strengthen collaborative surveillance and data use.
Minister of Health for Public Health and Prevention, Minister Sharon Hodgson says: “This strategy represents a serious, long-term commitment to protecting the public from future health threats. We learnt hard lessons from Covid-19, and it is our responsibility to act on them.
“Informed by Exercise Pegasus – the largest pandemic exercise in UK history – this strategy strengthens our capabilities, allowing us to respond faster and more effectively when the next health threat emerges. The public deserves nothing less.”
