In the latest of our 60 seconds interview series, we spoke with Luarena, Oxford Health BRC and OHFT R&D Administrator.
In this interview, she outlines her admin support role for our BRC and OHFT R&D, daily reporting tasks, career shift into healthcare, and future study ambitions.
Tell us about yourself, and what attracted you to working at OHFT?
I first started at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (OHFT)as an admin support worker (ASW) in the Health Visiting Team in South Oxfordshire. I had moved over to OHFT following a short stint as a Health Advisor at South Central Ambulance Service 111, and a year at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS in Medical Records, after being self-employed for many years. I was first attracted to the community-based admin role and supporting children and family nurses in my local area.
What is the focus of the work in your role?
The focus of my current role is admin support for the core team of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (OH BRC) and the Head of OHFT R&D, Dr Martin Batty. This includes a wide variety of tasks including arranging and minuting meetings for various OH BRC groups and committees, supporting the production of National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) OH BRC reports, producing monthly OH BRC Theme finance reports, support with Electronic Staff Records (ESR), eProcurement, eRostering and the Learning & Development (L&D) portal and significantly more day-to-day support function tasks across R&D and OH BRC.
What does a day in your current job look like? What are you currently working on?
Each day I monitor and respond to emails from multiple inboxes and complete associated follow-on tasks from these. I attend and minute any meetings in the calendar. At the start of each month, I produce finance reports for each of the OH BRC Themes and core activities, collating data from transaction reports from OHFT and three University of Oxford Departments as well as invoices from our 13 partner institutions. This week I am collating the research project information from our 11 OH BRC Themes for the third NIHR quarterly report of the 25/26 year. I am also supporting OHFT R&D Training Mangers with a project on the L&D training matrix for staff across R&D.
How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve definitely taken the scenic route into Healthcare and research. After completing my Psychology degree, I worked in education as an Examinations Officer and then as an Assistant Management Accountant. During that time, I completed a BACP Level 2 counselling course and also an evening class in Photography “just for fun”. That hobby quickly got out of hand, and I then spent over 17 years running my own portrait photography studio. When the pandemic hit and the studio closed, I took it as the universe’s unsubtle nudge to rethink things and I decided to pursue work in healthcare and the NHS, looping back to something a little closer to my degree.
Who or what inspires you?
Kind people who have a can-do attitude. Everyday people who are getting on with things, quietly persevering and carrying out responsibilities with resilience and grace, always impresses and inspires me.
If you were not in your job currently, what would you like to be doing?
If I weren’t in this job (and if money were no object) the thing I’d most like to do would be studying for another degree in health/medicine or a postgraduate course in psychology/research.
Email us: ohbrcenquiries@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk
