No formal response published by this government.

No formal response published by this government.

The government agrees with the Inquiry that data and research are crucial to preparing for, responding to and recovering from a pandemic.

The government recognises that effective response to any future pandemic requires a refined and developed understanding of data, research, analysis, and other evidence required to underpin the response. At the beginning of the pandemic we lacked the systems, structures and processes needed to collect, analyse and distribute data quickly enough. These are now significantly improved, and robust epidemiological data will always be dependent on the availability and scale of appropriate surveillance and testing. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) including via NHS networks, are responsible for the collection, analysis and distribution of data related to infectious disease, as well as ensuring it is available, where legal frameworks allow, to support research projects. There are responsibilities across the government to plan, deliver and understand research commissioned between pandemics, to develop an ever deeper understanding of the evidence informing pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The Cabinet Office is responsible for ensuring that ministers and senior decision makers have the right information – including data – to take key decisions through the COBR mechanism during an emergency response.

Situational awareness data for crisis response:

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, surveillance, data collection and distribution were often manual and time-consuming. The process of identifying, collecting and reporting data to support a sustained national response took time, as did developing a dashboard, which was a cause of frustration among policy and decision makers. There was a lack of consistently comprehensive UK-wide data.

We have made significant progress on this. The National Situation Centre was established in 2021. It provides situational awareness for crisis response, bringing together data, analysis and critical expertise. It is already highly regarded internationally as a benchmark for the use of data in crisis, and represents a fundamental improvement since the pandemic - data now leads responses by default.

The establishment of the National Situation Centre means that we are better prepared to use anonymised and aggregated data to support strategic decision making on a range of national emergencies where that data is available. More than 700 such data sets have been mapped or ingested and, at short notice, we can produce analysis for over 85% of risks identified in the NSRA, and this coverage is ever expanding. Critical data sets, such as near real-time telephony data, cover the four nations. These capabilities are used regularly. It is vital to recognise that being prepared for a crisis requires us to take action before the crisis arises, which is why we have mapped or ingested this data ahead of time.

Dashboards – similar to those which took significant time to set up at the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020 – are now available on our Data, Analytics and Situational Awareness Hub. These collate information from government and non-government sources so that those working on a crisis have access to relevant and timely data related to that crisis and provide support to strategic decision making. They are hosted on a dedicated secure platform, built by the National Situation Centre, and are shared across government and with the devolved governments. This is supported by a dedicated crisis liaison officer responsible for ensuring the efficient and effective sharing of data between the devolved governments and the National Situation Centre.

However, in a future pandemic response, new sources of data such as specific targeted surveillance programmes as were established during COVID-19, would be needed to complement existing data streams and support decision making. Not all data which was used during the Covid-19 pandemic would be immediately available, and UKHSA and NHSE’s ability to increase data collection and surveillance will be dependent on the availability of diagnostics tools specific to the pathogen being available for use across the UK laboratory network, and appropriate data systems to share this information being in place. This is set out in more detail in the subsequent section.

Departments and bodies have gained valuable experience of working with providers of data and expertise outside of government. For example, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) continues to receive data from card payment providers for use in economic statistics. During the pandemic response, this data source was able to provide near real-time indicators of economic impacts. The Government Office for Science has set up an active continuous improvement programme for the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) which strengthens the government’s ability to identify and consult the best available experts across a more diverse range of scientific disciplines and better prepare them to support in an emergency. Under this programme, the Government Office for Science has worked with the National Situation Centre to develop ways of working that better connect scientific expertise with data, data analysis and data products during a crisis. Additionally, in 2022, The Government Office for Science established a new cross-government function, the Social and Behavioural Science for Emergencies Steering Group (SBSE), to strengthen coordination, identify cross-cutting social and behavioural evidence and data gaps for emergency preparedness and government capabilities and awareness.

Building on the lessons learned from visualising health data during Covid-19, the National Situation Centre is developing a new Biothreats Radar capable of scanning human, plant and animal health risks to create a powerful, near real-time view of emerging bio-threats and the impact they could have. The Radar will provide centralised data capability and actively monitor this information to provide decision makers with a comprehensive picture of known and developing biological threats. This sits alongside the UK Health Security Agency’s work to monitor new and emerging infectious diseases that could threaten the UK population. The Biological Security Strategy commits to scoping the development of integrated biosurveillance capabilities, to allow for more comprehensive monitoring of threats over time. Data and analysis, assured by experts, would flow into the National Situation Centre’s Biothreats Radar, providing decision makers with a comprehensive picture in crisis.

As noted above, the National Situation Centre has also developed a “digital NSRA” platform to interrogate the impacts of a risk, or a number of risks. It allows users to see the impacts which the materialisation of a risk may cause and immediately determine which of those impacts are compounded if multiple risks were to occur concurrently. If a new pandemic were to emerge, we would be able to consider complex, concurrent scenarios in minutes.

Further, supported by the ONS, the National Situation Centre has created a Risk Vulnerability Tool (RVT) to estimate the number of people who are vulnerable to the negative impacts of National Security Risk Assessment risks. It will be made available across government, including the devolved governments, through the aforementioned Data, Analytics and Situational Awareness Hub, supporting faster understanding of the scale and location of disproportionately impacted populations ahead of and during crises.

The National Situation Centre has been supported since early 2024 by a ‘Crisis Surge Team’, a pool of trained ONS analysts called upon to provide the Situation Centre with support during times of concurrent or enduring crises. This ensures skilled analysts can be deployed swiftly and efficiently to support matters of national importance. We recognise that the devolved governments are concerned about the demands of identifying, collecting and reporting data to the UK government. The National Situation Centre will continue to work with the devolved governments and local partners to strengthen and streamline systems, structure and processes for data sharing, both in preparation for and response to crises.

Overall, the ONS has been working closely with the devolved governments to improve data comparability and to ensure, as far as possible, that data is collected on a four-nations basis. The UK Concordat on Statistics, agreed in 2021, sets out the framework for co-operation in the production of statistics between the UK and devolved governments. Collection of new data during emergencies should, where possible, include the whole UK, allowing robust comparisons between different regions and areas. A model for this was the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey (CIS), rapidly set up by ONS and academic partners, to measure the prevalence and viral load, and identify, track and understand variants of SARS-CoV-2 across the UK, delivering breakdowns by age and region across all four nations. ONS has continued to work on household health surveys, having delivered the Winter CIS with UKHSA in 2023/24, and now the Health Insight Survey commissioned by NHS England. In England, Scotland and Wales, ONS runs the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, a monthly survey covering topics relating to people’s experience of daily life and events. This survey can be rapidly adapted to new topics as required, as happened during the pandemic.

The Cabinet Office also continues to provide the ResilienceDirect online service to enable collaboration and information sharing across multi-agency boundaries for the full cycle of emergency management: planning, exercising, response and recovery. The service already has nearly 67,000 active users from across the UK, Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and continues to be used daily to protect and save lives.

Approach to Research, Development and Data for pandemic preparedness and response:

Effective coordination of scientific research in advance of and in response to a future pandemic is essential to support in building the capacity and capability, and the scientific knowledge, in order to prepare and respond optimally to emerging infectious diseases and pandemics.

The UK government is commissioning a range of research projects ready to commence in the event of a future pandemic. These are primarily research infrastructure and studies that conduct research in the inter-pandemic period and are designed to be rapidly adapted to a new outbreak and includes hibernated protocols which can be rapidly triggered. The “UK Research and Development Framework for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response” was developed to facilitate effective collaboration between funders by determining research infrastructure needs, research priorities and appropriate funding routes to rapidly deliver research. UKHSA, along with the wider health system, identifies research needs and priorities for pandemic and epidemic preparedness, working with government funders and others to ensure that these are addressed under this new Framework. This was developed by all four nations with representation from all major UK government funders of research including UK Research and Innovation and the DHSC-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research. Research priorities are delivered through a coordinated toolkit of capabilities coupled with strengthened research infrastructure. This approach enables the advance funding and planning of a complementary suite of studies and identification of a collaborative network of researchers. It also gives us the ability to prevent and prepare effectively as well as adapt to changing priorities through pivoting pre-existing programmes.

Health equity considerations are essential to identifying evidence gaps on risks to vulnerable groups, and are therefore embedded in UKHSA Incident Research and Scientific Evaluation prioritisation criteria as well as the cross-government framework for pandemic preparedness research. UKHSA relies significantly on NHS pathology data for routine surveillance and is working to develop systems that can capture equity data characteristics routinely outside of pandemic periods. UKHSA is expanding the number of surveillance systems that can routinely report on social deprivation and ethnicity, and linking existing datasets as routine surveillance data do not always include these characteristics. Whilst not research, this supports UKHSA in the identification and prioritisation of research and development.

Understanding the effectiveness of different public health measures and how they affect specific groups is also vital. To support this, UKHSA has an ongoing programme of work to rigorously examine the evidence base relating to Public Health and Social Measures (PHSM), which are also a pillar of the cross-government framework. UKHSA’s work on PHSM aims to map the evidence of effectiveness and unintended consequences; generate evidence on PHSM across all routes of transmission; and translate evidence into public health advice that can be shared with external partners.

UKHSA has strengthened the ability to access health data through secure systems, and enabled sharing with international, national, local, and academic partners since the pandemic. The UKHSA data dashboard, a key part of the UK data landscape, puts public health data in the hands of stakeholders, policy makers and the public.

Besides this, aspects of the Covid-19 response have been integrated into core business functions of UKHSA, including a Pathogen Genomics Strategy and programme which will strengthen UKHSA’s ability to embed genomics data from other sources and manage this data in surveillance and incident response activities. UKHSA is also strengthening automated reporting of epidemiological information from private diagnostic laboratories and joining up data operations with UKHSA’s incident response structure.

UKHSA is delivering the Enterprise Data Analytics Platform, which allows staff to see real-time data on health security incidents to inform agile and scalable responses to these threats. UKHSA is also supporting national to local data sharing through the Data Sharing Framework with Upper Tier Local Authorities and the Local Authority Data Access Platform, enabling local partners secure access to sensitive health data to inform policy making and response.

DHSC and UKHSA continues to work closely with international partners to develop and deliver research priorities, which includes research to combat epidemics and outbreaks at source. For example, international research priorities are identified through: engagement via new international funders networks such as Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GLoPID-R); triggering rapid reviews of global research to identify gaps through the Pandemic Analytical Capacity and Funding Tracker (PACT); and responding to the priorities set out by the World Health Organization and local stakeholders.

Investment in key capabilities:

The research and development improvements made to prepare for and respond to a pandemic must be underpinned by investment in key capabilities that will enable these efforts, such as data and laboratory infrastructure, and researcher capacity and capability, including across a range of Health Protection areas.

As well as funding research itself, DHSC invests significantly in research expertise and capacity, specialist facilities, support services and collaborations to support and deliver research in England. NIHR infrastructure funding supports the country’s leading experts to develop and deliver high-quality translational, clinical and applied research that is funded by the NIHR’s research programmes, other public funders of research, charities and the life sciences industry. Additional focus has been placed on pandemic preparedness across the NIHR infrastructure. For example, from Spring 2025, all NIHR Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs) – partnerships between the UK Health Security Agency and academia, covering infectious diseases, emergency preparedness or cross-cutting themes must have a research theme addressing pandemic preparedness. Additionally, funding will be awarded to one HPRU to be a hub that will coordinate and embed pandemic preparedness activities across all HPRUs to ensure they are complementary and responsive. HPRUs have and will continue to have a responsive mode to support UKHSA in addressing emerging research needs from emergencies and incidents, whilst ensuring that health equity is addressed within their research.

Quality critical infrastructure, including high containment laboratories, are a core capability to support research and are essential for the UK to identify, characterise and respond to dangerous infectious diseases (including epidemics and pandemics), and conduct crucial research into disease prevention, treatment and decontamination. These laboratories are a key element of the government’s Health Mission, essential to identifying, characterising, surveilling and monitoring the pathogens that cause animal, plant and human disease outbreaks. For example, the government is continuing to invest in The Science Capability in Animal Health programme which is redeveloping the UK’s main animal health science laboratories. High containment facilities are critical infrastructure for the UK, handling a wide range of threats to animals, plants and humans - several of which feature on the UK National Risk Register. They are essential for developing diagnostics and evaluating infectious disease countermeasures (such as therapeutics and vaccines). For example, during the 2022 Mpox outbreak, UKHSA used their high containment laboratory facilities to rapidly develop a test to detect Mpox-immunity in individuals who had contracted Mpox or received the smallpox vaccine.

On data, since 2022, DHSC has had the public commitment to adopt Secure Data Environments for the secondary uses of health data through the £175m Data for Research and Development programme. The NHS Research Secure Data Environment Network covers all of England and quickly provides privacy protecting access to a range of data against the full spectrum of research. By March 2025, there will be over 500 research studies in the SDE Network pipeline, including multi SDE projects, and industry studies.

This strengthened ability to share data through secure, interoperable platforms holds huge potential for future pandemic research, provided it can be accessed safely whilst maintaining public trust. It can help to support faster access to richer, UK-wide datasets for researchers in what will be the world’s largest linked health datasets. It will also give organisations greater control and oversight over their data as it remains within the secure space.

To facilitate fast research, by March 2025, the NHS DigiTrials Service, using digital tools to enhance the number of research volunteers, is anticipated to have enabled the recruitment of over one million participants into clinical research. This demonstrates its efficacy to support rapid trial recruitment when required. The plan is to develop fast, pandemic ready data streams for use during pandemics, including during pandemics.

Similar approaches to data access are being taken by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and we are continuing to work to improve better system wide alignment and interoperability between health data platforms across the UK. Collectively these data infrastructure assets allow the UK to accelerate secure, publicly trusted health research agnostic of pandemics, but could be pivoted to more successfully support high-quality research and analysis at times of future crisis.

[IN PROGRESS] Biothreats Radar launched on National Situation Centre platform. NHS Research Secure Data Environment shows 504 projects delivered/active/planned as of March 2025. Data sharing MOU with devolved governments agreed.