The past few weeks have been an incredibly busy time for the NARU Education Centre and behind all the training and education are our administrative team who ensure that everything runs completely seamlessly.
Nicola Harrington is responsible for organising exercises, events and other projects for NARU. This has included two one-day MTFA exercises named “March Mist”, which required the attendance of seven different Fire and Rescue Services and 100 participants in total.
Nicola is also part of rolling out the JESIP IOR programme to Ambulance staff which, over the past few weeks, has required; organising and being part of working groups to produce additional IOR enhancement products for Control Room and Commanders and the wider NHS; organising an IOR Assurance Exercise to test the products on front-line operational staff; liaising with the IOR SME’s to obtain their availability and then subsequently arranging two national workshops; distributing the invitation to IOR points of contact within both the Ambulance and Acute Trusts; on-going support to the JESIP Interoperability Command Programme; supporting a high-profile PHE workshop in London by liaising with the PHE exercise team pre-event and operating the TrainStation equipment on the day.
Nancy, our Training Administrator, keeps things running smoothly with her excellent administrative management of the centre and organisation of courses which requires; delegates attendance confirming, feeding/accommodation to be booked, name badges to be printed and answering the numerous queries from candidates. The past few weeks has had the additional logistical issues of running a full HART IRU course on site and also, at short notice, sourcing an external venue for a 3-day Bronze Command course.
Nancy has also been liaising with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in the USA, to organise for one of the NARU Instructors to take part in an exchange programme; distributing 72 boxes of IOR guidance; assisting with catering and accommodation for over 100 attendees at March Mist; arranging the loan of three of our 4×4 vehicles to SWAST to help with the flooding in Somerset, sourcing replacement vehicles for the duration, as well as keeping on top of the maintenance of our fleet which meant arranging collection and delivery to the garages for six vehicles to have MOT’s and six other vehicles to have safety checks – no mean feat!
Another highly valued member of our team is our Finance Administrator Elaine. Elaine ensures purchase orders are raised for all the Education Centre’s services/purchases and works hard to keep a good working relationship between NARU, WMAS finance department and our suppliers. Elaine has the added pressure this month of ensuring all 2013/2014 financial year invoices are put through the e-procurement system in time to meet the year-end deadline.
For more information visit www.narueducationcentre.org.uk