The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has launched its three-year strategy to combat both new and re-emerging threats and to protect health security. The new document sets out UKHSA’s vision and goals for the next three years to prepare for and respond to health threats and build the capabilities and technologies to protect the country in the future.
UKHSA was established in 2021 as a centre of scientific and operational excellence in health protection. The agency collaborates with partners in industry and academia, as well as across the NHS and wider health system to improve health security both in the UK and worldwide. UKHSA works to protect the public against a wide range of health threats. These include infectious disease – from pathogens with pandemic potential to seasonal flu – chemical, radiation and nuclear hazards, extreme weather events and other environmental risks.
Dame Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of UKHSA, said: “The dangers that emerging and re-emerging pathogens, environmental threats, and extreme climate pose to health should not be underestimated. It is absolutely vital that the UK’s public health protection infrastructure and scientific expertise are equal to the challenge. Through this strategic plan, UKHSA will continue to work across government, academia, and the private and voluntary sectors to keep the public safe and ensure that the UK is in the best possible position to respond to the hazards that we will face in coming years.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a reminder of the catastrophic impact that health hazards can have on our lives and livelihoods, it has also shown the great strides that can be made when government, industry, and academia work together, developing innovative solutions and harnessing the power of data and scientific insight to drive policy and response.
The six strategic priorities for UKHSA laid out in the strategy are to:
- Be ready to respond to all hazards to health. UKHSA will ensure it has the right plans, expertise, infrastructure, capabilities and countermeasures in place to mount agile and resilient responses to health security threats, including pandemics, working across the health system to develop capability for scalability and robust planning.
- Improve health outcomes through vaccines. UKHSA will harness its strengths across the whole vaccine pathway to facilitate innovation in the development of safe and effective vaccines, ensuring reliable procurement and increasing uptake among the population, thereby reducing the burden of infectious disease.
- Reduce the impact of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance. UKHSA will harness its science, analytical and operational expertise to minimise the impact of infectious disease, with a focus over the next three years on COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance and progression of elimination targets for bloodborne viruses and tuberculosis (TB).
- Protect health from threats in the environment. UKHSA will protect the population from the health effects of environmental, chemical, radiological and nuclear incidents of any scale by improving planning and preparedness and providing public health expertise to inform policy and response.
- Improve action on health security through data and insight. UKHSA will maximise partnerships and the health impact of the data it holds, the evidence it generates and the insights it draws, to be a leader in safe and regulated handling and use of public health data, analytics and surveillance.
- Develop UKHSA as a high-performing agency. UKHSA will be ready to prepare for and respond to health security challenges by investing in its people and culture; partnerships and relationships; data, science and research and operational excellence.
The UKHSA strategy is underpinned by a commitment to deliver more equitable health outcomes. Health threats often disproportionately impact certain groups and therefore tackling health inequalities is central to UKHSA’s work. We actively address this across all of our programmes, working closely with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).
New and emerging diseases, increased global movement and environmental change are already amplifying the health security challenges which the UK and the global community are facing. These threats, and others, are set to rise in coming years.
Read the full Strategic Plan at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukhsa-strategic-plan-2023-to-2026
