Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 7 February (HL4942) which confirmed that the expert working group established specifically to review Evusheld pre-exposure prophylaxis only met twice, the last meeting being on 19 May 2022, why the parliamentary Written Answers provided from that date until 4 July 2022 refer to asking clinicians to advise on the most appropriate option; and what other advice was being received during this period.

The National Expert Working Group is one of the sources of clinical opinion to develop clinical policies. During this period the RAPID C-19 cross-agency group was also set up to review COVID-19 therapies in response to the pandemic. They would consider evidence and analysis from a number of sources, including the Prophylaxis Oversight Group and the UK Health Security Agency. In addition, the Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel considered evidence for COVID-19 risk to help prioritise cohorts for prophylaxis. This informed thinking within the Department and was subsequently shared with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. These groups continued to consider emerging evidence, including published evidence from independent researchers and evidence from the company, after the last meeting of the Expert Working Group.