Emergency preparedness specialists embedded throughout the agency play an important role in training and exercising the healthcare community.

On behalf of the Department of Health, training courses and exercises are delivered every year throughout England to develop resilience across healthcare organisations. The HPA has also been successful in bidding for contracts to design and deliver exercise and training programmes for the World Heath Organization (WHO), Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO), the European Commission(EC), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control  (ECDC)  and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The agency also undertakes bespoke resilience and preparedness projects for both public and private sector organisations and has experience of working with and for devolved administrations, parts of the NHS, non governmental organisations and other agencies and organisations. 

The HPA is also involved in horizon scanning for new and emerging threats and developing and maintaining its plans and protocols for responses to health emergencies at a local, regional and national level. The Microbial Risk Assessment (MRA) group  provides the HPA with the evidence based risk assessment capability to advise other organisations on policy, contingency planning and public health countermeasures in relation to new and emerging infectious disease threats and bioterrorism. The Behavioural Sciences Research Team (BSRT) conducts research projects on the areas of psychological and behavioural responses to conventional terrorism, natural disasters and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents. The team also studies the communication of risk to the public, psychosocial emergency preparedness and response and operational research on mass casualty decontamination.