Last week, the House of Lords debated the findings of the report from the first Covid inquiry module, which focused on the UK’s pandemic preparedness pre-COVID.
The Government’s new Health Minister in the Lords, Baroness Merron, led the debate. She stated that the UK was ill-prepared for the pandemic, indeed, the UK had pivoted towards preparing for the wrong pandemic. Future pandemic preparedness plans must be more flexible to tackle a variety of threats, however respiratory pathogens remain the most likely to cause future pandemics..
The Minister noted that the Government have identified five key lessons to be better prepared for future pandemics, which are now being combined with the lessons learned from this inquiry.
One of those lessons is that ‘diagnostics and data are crucial in a pandemic response’. This is a welcome acknowledgement from the new Government and we will work alongside them to ensure the diagnostics industry is able to mobilise quickly to protect the UK from public health crises.
