A committee established to prepare Scotland for future pandemics has called for urgent improvements to the way data is collected and analysed, as it recommends that the Scottish government establishes a national laboratory to support knowledge-based responses to future risks.

An interim report from the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness says a unified body for public health intelligence and scientific expertise should be developed, with cross-sector collaboration from industry, government, NHS and academia.

Such a Centre of Pandemic Preparedness would create a ‘critical mass of expertise and leadership across sectors’ and enable Scotland to take action based on evidence when trying to protect its citizens from infectious disease, according to the report.

The committee also recommends the Scottish government commission work to develop robust data infrastructure, which should be flexible enough to allow for rapid investigations of trends in real-time.

Chair of the standing committee, Professor Andrew Morris – a globally recognised clinician and data science expert - says ‘significant challenges remain’ in creating the right conditions for this, but believes each of the committee’s ‘four big-ticket recommendations’ are achievable ambitions for the Scottish government.

Other recommendations from the committee are for Scotland to strengthen its links to UK and international scientific advisory networks, and to support continued innovation in life sciences and public health research across diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics.

Professor Morris – a vice principal at Edinburgh University who is also chair of the Scottish government’s covid-19 advisory group – says he would expect a “triple helix partnership” across public health, research and industry to be active within 12 months.

The Scottish government established a permanent Standing Committee for Pandemic Preparedness last year, bringing together scientists and technical experts to advise on future risks from pandemics.

Following concerns that the committee would not directly focus on social care, the chair confirmed at its meeting in April that the remit would be extended to explicitly include the sector.

In the most recent minutes from June this year, the committee agreed its focus will primarily strategy and principles for a future pandemic response rather than an operational plan, and that it will engage widely with other governmental groups and Public Health Scotland to move beyond a solely clinical and scientific focus.  

The committee says its next phase of work will be a wide consultation to bring together different perspectives across sectors, with the aim of producing a final report within the next 18 months.

 

Read more: Social care left out of future pandemic planning; Pandemic impact on cancer incidence in Scotland

 

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