Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what operational definition of a pandemic is used by her Department, NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency for preparedness and planning purposes; and whether that definition has changed since 2020.

For the definition of a pandemic, I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the answer she received on 9 June in response to Question 3211. The National Risk Register, last updated in July, sets out the ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ pandemic used for planning purposes.