On 24 September 2026, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) set out plans to scale up its wastewater surveillance programme, Pathogen Risk Intelligence through Surveillance and Modelling (PRISM), backed by a £3 million investment from the UK Integrated Security Fund (ISF) to add new sites, automation and a wider pathogen menu in England GOV.UK blogs.
Writing on the UKHSA blog, the agency said the next phase will let it "publish new data" drawn from a network that currently covers the wastewater of around 25 million people across England, built on infrastructure originally deployed for polio elimination GOV.UK blogs.
Key takeaways
- UKHSA is expanding PRISM with a £3 million ISF investment to broaden wastewater pathogen surveillance across England GOV.UK blogs.
- The surveillance network currently covers wastewater from about 25 million people in England, built on the existing polio monitoring infrastructure GOV.UK blogs.
- PRISM is already testing for norovirus, enterovirus, flu A, flu B, rhinovirus, RSV and COVID-19 identifiers, with norovirus strain tracking flagged as a current operational use case GOV.UK blogs.
- New priority targets include mpox, measles, avian influenza, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, West Nile virus, Lassa fever, MERS-CoV, hepatitis A, hepatitis E, Candidozyma auris and hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae GOV.UK blogs.
- Future work will pilot hospital wastewater sites and high-footfall locations such as transport hubs, and explore air surveillance GOV.UK blogs.
What happened
UKHSA said it has monitored wastewater across England for polio for the past four years and, over the past year, has been testing new technologies to detect other threats GOV.UK blogs. The blog post describes PRISM as a multi-pathogen programme in which "one sample of wastewater can be tested for many different threats at once," moving away from the single-target model that previously dominated government wastewater testing GOV.UK blogs.
The agency reported that it has demonstrated a single wastewater sample can support public health surveillance, biosecurity monitoring and tracking of antimicrobial resistance simultaneously, and is now working with government and academic partners on a "sample once – test many" model GOV.UK blogs. Current detection is presence-or-absence rather than longitudinal trend tracking, with a parallel untargeted sequencing approach intended to flag new or unusual pathogens GOV.UK blogs.
Norovirus was highlighted as the most operationally mature use case, with PRISM tracking circulating strains to give the NHS a clearer view of winter pressures GOV.UK blogs. New ISF funding is intended to add sites, expand coverage, automate lab workflows and improve detection of pathogens that have been hard to pick up in wastewater, with new data compared against other technologies for reliability before wider release GOV.UK blogs.
UKHSA listed 12 priority targets for the coming year, mixing elimination-goal diseases (mpox, measles), emerging viral threats (avian influenza, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, West Nile virus, Lassa fever, MERS-CoV), hepatitis A and E, and two antimicrobial resistance priorities: Candidozyma auris and hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae GOV.UK blogs. The agency stressed these were chosen for preparedness, "rather than because they are currently widespread in the UK" GOV.UK blogs. Future work will explore targeted hospital wastewater sites, transport hubs and air sampling, with the long-term goal of making PRISM a permanent, business-as-usual capability integrated with existing public health surveillance GOV.UK blogs.
| Parameter | Reported value |
|---|---|
| Programme | PRISM (UKHSA wastewater and environmental surveillance) |
| Funding | £3 million from the UK Integrated Security Fund (ISF) |
| Population covered by network | ~25 million people across England |
| Current pathogen panel | Norovirus, enterovirus, flu A, flu B, rhinovirus, RSV, COVID-19 identifiers |
| New priority targets | Mpox, measles, avian influenza, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, West Nile virus, Lassa fever, MERS-CoV, hepatitis A, hepatitis E, Candidozyma auris, hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae |
| New sampling sites being explored | Hospital wastewater sites, transport hubs; exploratory air surveillance |
Specification read
The 25 million-person catchment reported by UKHSA implies a dry-weather flow of roughly 2.5 million m³/day at a domestic per-capita allowance of about 100 L/day (general industry range, not from the sources), distributed across the 190-plus sewage treatment works that feed the existing polio monitoring network (general industry range, not from the sources). For buyers and plant managers, the relevance sits upstream of biological treatment: PRISM is a sampling and analytical layer added to the headworks, not a change to the secondary or tertiary process train, so a typical site still runs screening → grit removal → primary clarification → biological stage (A2O, MBR, MBBR, SBR or UASB depending on footprint) → tertiary or disinfection. The new ISF spend is targeted at new sites, automation and multi-pathogen assays, meaning more frequent composite sampling, refrigerated auto-samplers and on-site or hub-based PCR/sequencing capacity at the inlet works, with hospital effluent and transport-hub sampling requiring dedicated hospital wastewater streams and high-footfall location grab or composite sampling. If your plant is a municipal works in the 50–500 m³/day to 50,000–200,000 m³/day range serving 25,000 to 500,000 population equivalents, with ammonia and total nitrogen consent pressure and a public-health liaison requirement, expect new sampling cabinets, additional composite auto-samplers and a data interface to a national surveillance platform rather than a change to your biological reactors. Packaged Integrated Sewage Treatment packages, hospital-side Disinfection Equipment and underground schemes such as the Underground Package Sewage Treatment Plant (WSZ Series) are the type of units this expanded network will sample around.
FAQ
What is the PRISM wastewater surveillance programme? PRISM is UKHSA's expanding wastewater and environmental surveillance programme, designed to detect a wide range of pathogens from a single sample, rather than a single organism at a time GOV.UK blogs.
How much new money is being put into wastewater surveillance in England? UKHSA said the next phase of PRISM is backed by a £3 million investment from the UK Integrated Security Fund, intended to fund new sites, automation and broader pathogen detection GOV.UK blogs.
How many pathogens will the new wastewater testing cover, and what is the lead time for a municipal site to be added? The reported current panel covers seven targets (norovirus, enterovirus, flu A, flu B, rhinovirus, RSV, COVID-19 identifiers) with 12 new priority targets added for the coming year; site onboarding lead time is not given in the source (general industry range, not from the sources) GOV.UK blogs.
What does this mean for a hospital wastewater site or transport-hub operator? UKHSA said it will explore targeted hospital wastewater sites and high-footfall locations such as transport hubs in the coming year, and assess where environmental surveillance adds the most value, so operators in these settings may see requests for sampling access rather than treatment changes GOV.UK blogs.
