Exercise Pomare: Post Exercise Report

Exercise POMARE was an all-of-government influenza pandemic exercise led by the Ministry of Health.

Exercise POMARE was developed to enhance all-of-government pandemic readiness by ensuring government agencies understood their roles and responsibilities before, during and after a pandemic response.

The exercise consisted of a series of four multi-agency workshops, conducted at the national level over a seven month period from 27 0ct 2017 to 07 May 2018. Each workshop examined a particular phase(s) of the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan (NZIPAP, 2nd Edition (2017). Participants were required to consider how their agency would discharge its roles, responsibilities and core functions within the inter-agency environment for each phase.

The overarching aims of Exercise POMARE were to:

• familiarise central government agencies with the NZIPAP 2nd Edition (2017)
• familiarise central government agencies with their role and responsibilities before, during and after a pandemic response, and the key decision points and decisions that must be made in accordance with NZIPAP 2nd Edition (2017)
• apply the lessons learned from the exercise to develop the NZIPAP.

This report provides an overview of the exercise and exercise proceedings, communicates findings from the exercise evaluation, and recommends actions that will enhance New Zealand’s capability and capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from an influenza pandemic.