The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) welcomes the publication of the Pandemic Preparedness Strategy: Building Our Capabilities, and its commitment to a whole‑of‑government approach, strengthened surveillance, community protection, and resilient health and care systems.
The Strategy’s recognition of the profound health, social and economic consequences of pandemics, and its emphasis on equity, trust and multisector coordination across the full pandemic life cycle, represents meaningful progress but several areas can be strengthened further.
1. Leadership and Decision‑Making Under Uncertainty
FPH strongly supports the Strategy’s focus on evidence‑based action and cross‑government coordination. There is a persistent gap between surveillance intelligence and timely decision‑making across organisations. This could be improved by shared decision frameworks between organisations, including pre‑agreed triggers for early action, explicit consideration of uncertainty, and mechanisms to protect scientific independence. Within these frameworks ethical and equity‑based decision processes in all emergency planning structures must be embedded.
2. Sustaining Preparedness Capability
The Strategy acknowledges the need for a whole‑system response and long‑term capability building with funding commitment to support this. However, despite best intentions UK preparedness repeatedly erodes between crises. FPH supports regular, across-organisational and local authority exercises, including with non-governmental stakeholders. This should include accountability and audit mechanisms to ensure maintenance of capacity, capability and future resilience.
3. Workforce Capacity and Resilience
FPH welcomes the Strategy’s commitments to strengthen health and social care system resilience.
However, workforce fragility remains one of the UK’s biggest vulnerabilities, with inadequate surge capacity and unclear articulation of public health workforce roles. There is a need to upskill public health specialists and allied professionals in emergency preparedness competencies and invest in long‑term core public health staffing rather than temporary emergency structures.
4. Governance, Roles and Accountability
The Strategy builds on recent reforms aiming to improve crisis governance. There is ongoing ambiguity between national, regional and local responsibilities. There would be value in publishing a UK‑wide governance map clarifying ‘who does what in pandemics’. In particular, FPH supports strengthening the statutory role of Directors of Public Health within national decision‑making.
5. Equity, Community Resilience and Trust
FPH strongly endorses the Strategy’s focus on community protection and reducing inequalities but we stress that equity must be a design principle, not an after‑the‑fact measurement.
This includes requiring participatory community co‑design within all preparedness planning, investing in long‑term relationship‑building with marginalised communities and increasing transparency around trade‑offs (e.g., education vs. transmission control), supported by behavioural science. Commitment to supporting mental health and wellbeing preparedness should also be recognised as a key priority.
6. Communication and the Information Environment
The Strategy recognises the damage caused by misinformation and declining trust. There is a need to move from reactive to preventive infodemic management, including pre‑built misinformation response protocols. The FPH recognises the role of digital and social media platforms in pandemic communication, and we strongly recommend preparedness to ensure how government will work with or counter misinformation hosted by them during a future crisis.
7. Research, Innovation and Evidence Generation
While the Strategy includes commitments to improve surveillance and access to medical countermeasures, the FPH notes a worrying decline in global research funding for public‑health‑oriented measures. The government should invest in evaluation of public health and social measures (PHSMs), and ethical research structures that enable rapid learning during crises. Incorporating PHSM to support better understanding of the public response should be clearly prioritised in preparedness planning.
8. Integrating Climate, Planetary Health and Emerging Risks
The Strategy recognises interconnected risks but remains disease and transmission route focused.
Notably, FPH stresses the increasing overlap between climate impacts and infectious threats. For example, the risk from invasive mosquito borne disease, such as the outbreaks of Chikungunya now seen regularly in France, driven by rapidly spreading range of the Aedes albopictus mosquito. Responding to this threat requires new investments in surveillance and control capabilities with a One Health lens.
Conclusion
The DHSC Strategy marks an important step forward. Yet to achieve truly resilient preparedness, the UK must reinforce governance clarity, sustain workforce and system capabilities, embed equity and community partnership, and integrate climate‑related risks. FPH stand ready to support government through professional leadership, workforce development, and standards development to ensure the UK is prepared, not only for the next pandemic, but for a future defined by interconnected global threats.
