UK to supply millions of PPE to frontline healthcare staff

Millions of personal protection equipment (PPE) will be delivered to frontline health and social care workers treating coronavirus patients, the government has said.

More visors, aprons and gowns will be manufactured and delivered to the frontline staff in response to the government’s 'call to arms'.

Four new partnerships have been struck to rapidly produce and deliver PPE to frontline workers in the near future, a government communication has said.

Photocentric will supply over 7.6 million protective visors over the next six months, with plans to scale up to making 500,000 visors a day, if required.

Ramfoam has been scheduled to distribute three million visors to the NHS per week. The company is recruiting an additional 100 staff to ensure demand is met, scaling up to over 160.

Starting from this week, Elite Plastics Ltd will deliver 20 million PPE to the NHS and social care sector a month

Macdonald and Taylor Healthcare Ltd, who have scaled up production of isolation gowns and scrubs, so far delivering 40,000 gowns a week for the last two months. They will now be providing an additional 50,000 gowns a week with government fabric for the next six months.

Lord Paul Deighton, adviser to the Health Secretary on PPE, said: “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.”

The government said it has delivered over 1.65 billion pieces of PPE to the frontline and deals have already been struck with around 30 companies, including Amazon, Royal Mail, and Jaguar Land Rover, through the “make” initiative to produce much-needed PPE.

The government is also working with over 100 new suppliers to deliver at the scale and pace the UK requires.