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<p>Exercise Alice was a tabletop preparedness exercise carried out in 2016 to prepare
for a potential outbreak of the high consequence infectious disease Middle Eastern
Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) in the United Kingdom (UK).</p><p>As Ministers receive
regular and routine updates on our pandemic preparedness programme, including preparedness
exercises for pandemics and high consequence infectious disease outbreaks, such as
the 2016 Exercise Alice, we do not hold records of the number of times updates were
specifically requested.</p><p>According to our records, Minsters were first given
a copy of the report when Minister Jo Churchill was provided with a copy of the report,
on 1 December 2020, following a request made for the report under the Freedom of Information
Act.</p><p>The Government has been extremely proactive in implementing lessons learnt
around pandemic preparedness from exercises and incident responses to ensure that
the UK remains well-prepared for a pandemic infectious disease outbreak. This includes
being ready with legislative proposals and improving health sector plans to flex and
expand systems beyond normal capacity levels.</p><p>The results of Exercise Alice
have been incorporated into ongoing planning work conducted by The Department, The
United Kingdom Health Security Agency and NHS England and NHS Improvement to respond
to potential High Consequence Infectious Disease outbreaks in the UK.</p>
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