Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the causes of the outbreak of COVID-19 at meat processing plants; and what measures they plan to take (1) to address such outbreaks, and (2) to prevent any such recurrence. [T]

Public Health England (PHE) local health protection teams respond to notifications of suspected outbreaks in food processing plants by undertaking a risk assessment, providing public health advice, including on infection prevention and control and social distancing measures, and advising on the testing of employees. In doing so, an assessment is made as to whether transmission may be occurring in or outside the workplace.

An enhanced outbreak investigation protocol has been developed which will allow PHE to further understand the factors relating to infection transmission in meat-related food production settings to ascertain potential routes of transmission: within the workplace through a more detailed understanding of the workforce, the working environment and working practices; staff and environmental biological sampling; factors outside the workplace, such as transport arrangements, housing, employment conditions.

The learning from such investigations can identify measures that may help prevent outbreaks from occurring in these settings.