Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of public information campaigns on (a) safety relating to ticks and (b) tick-bite prevention measures in (i) GP surgeries and (ii) outdoor spaces.

UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), along with local authority partners, developed a Tick Awareness Toolkit, available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1149305/Be_tick_aware_toolkit.pdf

The toolkit can be used by local authorities and other organisations to deliver tick awareness messaging, including safety relating to ticks and the promotion of tick-bite prevention behaviours. This can be deployed in a variety of settings, including general practitioner surgeries and outdoor spaces. The toolkit also encourages local authorities to evaluate the impact of any campaign work.

UKHSA have also used the Tick Surveillance Scheme and Lyme Disease Fingertips datasets to identify potentially higher risk locations in England. This information has been shared with local authorities, along with the resources in the Tick Awareness Toolkit, to enable them to produce more targeted campaigns.