Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of ending government support for the UK Recovery programme on the UK's preparedness for future pandemics.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded the RECOVERY trial in March 2020, initially for 18 months, before progressively extending the study to March 2024. It was a highly successful trial that, by recruiting patients at a faster rate than any previous trial, was able to rapidly identify the first drugs that reduce COVID-19 mortality. At the end of an NIHR award, including any extensions, researchers can apply through a competitive process for new funding.

The NIHR continues to fund research into infectious diseases, which could be utilised in the event of another pandemic. For example, the NIHR has allocated £2.9 million to Imperial College London and Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust to adapt their COVID-19 trial for severe flu patients. The NIHR is open to applications on any health and care-related topic.

More widely, the UK Biological Security Strategy, published in June 2023, reaffirms our ambition to scale up discovery, development, and manufacturing of therapeutics and vaccines within 100 days of a pandemic being declared. This aligns with our ongoing work to ensure a flexible and capabilities-based approach to pandemic preparedness, which will see emergency planners develop and maintain a generic suite of adaptable response capabilities across the Government. This will enable an approach that can be flexibly deployed to meet the demands of any future pandemic, and support a whole-system response.