08.06.20
Four new partnerships struck to deliver PPE to frontline staff
As part of the Government’s ‘Make’ initiative, four new partnerships have been struck to ramp up domestic production of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect frontline healthcare staff during the current coronavirus outbreak.
Millions more visors, aprons and gowns will be delivered to health and social care workers treating coronavirus patients over the next few months after deals were struck with Photocentric, Ramfoam, Elite Plastics Ltd and Macdonald and Taylor Healthcare.
Under the new contracts, the companies will turn their attention and efforts to the production of PPE.
Utilising innovative 3D-printing methods to produce visors in large quantities, Photocentric are set to supply over 7.6 million protective visors over the next six months. Plans include capacity to scale up to making 500,000 visors a day if required.
Similarly, Ramfoam will be manufacturing and delivering 3 million visors to the NHS per week. Elite Plastics, meanwhile, have adapted their production lines to produce large volumes of aprons with 20 million set to be delivered to the NHS and social sector per month, beginning this week.
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Macdonald and Taylor Healthcare have scaled up production of isolation gowns and scrubs under the new government contract. In the last two months, they have delivered 40,000 gowns a week with the additional capacity set to now be able to provide an additional 50,000 gowns a week with government fabric for the next six months.
The new deals represent part of a wide-reaching government response which has seen deals struck with more than 30 companies and delivered over 1.65 billion items of PPE through the ‘Make’ initiative.
Lord Paul Deighton, Adviser to the Health Secretary on PPE, said: “The response from our manufacturing industry has been phenomenal and I can’t thank them enough for their continued efforts. Every health and care worker must have access to appropriate PPE and through this national effort we will ensure they do.
“We have already struck deals with around 30 UK companies to manufacture PPE and over 100 suppliers to deliver items at scale and pace. We will continue to identify further opportunities to get more PPE to the frontline rapidly.”
Equally, the Government has looked to consolidate the necessary supply chains, working with over 100 new suppliers to deliver at the scale and pace the UK requires.