In-person meeting of The NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission, 13th and 14th September, United Kingdom
The NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission convened its first in-person hybrid meeting in London, United Kingdom, on 13–14 September 2023. Co-chaired by the Right Honourable Helen Clark, Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar, and Professor Helena Legido-Quigley, with participation from Commissioners, the Scientific team, Lancet editors, and invited experts, the meeting focused on shaping the Commission’s vision, framework, structure, and priorities for strengthening pandemic preparedness.
Discussions drew on four background papers examining global health security, existing indicators for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, grassroots indicators, and resilient health systems. Participants critically reflected on the limitations and biases of existing health security concepts and measurement frameworks, highlighting the need for context-specific, equitable, operationally useful indicators that incorporate community knowledge and perspectives. The Commission also explored alternative approaches to health security, including health protection and mutual health protection, while emphasising stronger links with universal health coverage, health promotion, and sustainable development.
The meeting established key principles to guide the Commission’s work, including equity, sustainable development, decolonisation, societal readiness, human-centred approaches, community engagement, and robust monitoring and evaluation. Commissioners shared experiences and lessons from different pandemic and public health responses, highlighting the importance of political commitment, transparency, trust, resilient systems, research and modelling capacity, gender-responsive approaches, and meaningful engagement with communities and local organisations.
The meeting concluded with a shared commitment to collaboration and continued communication. Key next steps included finalising the background papers, developing the Commission’s communication strategy, refining its structure and country-level case studies, and advancing a comprehensive framework for pandemic preparedness. The meeting laid a strong foundation for the Commission’s subsequent work towards an equitable, sustainable, and context-sensitive approach to pandemic readiness and response.
