Exercise Paton: a simulation exercise to test New South Wales Emergency Departments' response to pandemic influenza.

Exercise Paton was a New South Wales-wide simulation exercise conducted on 30 November 2006, to test the response of New South Wales emergency departments (EDs), multi-purpose services* (MPSs), and public health units to the presentation of single cases of pandemic influenza during the early stages of a pandemic. The exercise followed the release of the New South Wales policy document to guide New South Wales hospitals’ response to an influenza pandemic, titled Hospital Response to Pandemic Influenza, Part 1: Emergency Department Response.1 The exercise was named after Dr Robert Paton, the New South Wales Director-General of Public Health during the ‘Spanish influenza’ pandemic of 1918–1919.