Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether vaccine roll-out was a part of Exercise Cygnus.

The aim of Exercise Cygnus was to assess the United Kingdom’s preparedness and response to a pandemic influenza as reflected in the UK’s worst-case planning scenario. Arrangements to access a pandemic vaccine is one aspect of our ‘defence in depth’ approach, as set out in the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011. The exercise was set in week seven of the UK’s response to a pandemic influenza. At this point, pandemic vaccine had been ordered but was not yet available.