Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 16 October (HL10485), over what period they plan to maintain the strategic reserve of intensive care unit equipment originally established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and whether, in considering the future of that strategic reserve, their planning scenarios include (1) a respiratory pandemic that creates greater demand for critical care than the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) a respiratory pandemic that affects a different demographic, specifically one that disproportionately affects children and babies.

The COVID Strategic Intensive Care Unit Reserve will hold equipment on hand for emergency use in the National Health Service until March 2024. The Government continues to prepare for a range of pandemic and emerging infectious disease scenarios, in line with our revised assessment of the pandemic risk. This includes preparing for all five routes of disease transmission.