Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that care homes and carers are equipped to maintain their care for disabled and vulnerable people in the event of an international emergency or conflict involving the UK and allies and trade partners.

The Department supports the health and social care system on an ongoing basis to monitor, plan, and respond to the full range of risks, including in relation to the supply of medicines and medical equipment. Based on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and previous incidents, we aim to have flexible, adaptable, and scalable capabilities that can respond to any threat that might emerge, and we also use a range of methods to assess the preparedness of the health and social care system and its capabilities, ranging from analysis of performance data to learning from real-life incidents.