Councillors from Beverley Town Council are delivering life-saving, PPE face shields to key workers in the care home sector in Beverley.
The face shields have been designed by the engineering department at Hull University, who have been working round the clock with NHS consultants and industrial partners to create a state of the art face shield to protect health workers against the Covid 19 virus.
Together with their industrial partners, the University has now been able to take their initial prototypes into mass production, and the first supplies are now finding their way into NHS and other healthcare organisations.
The face shields have been funded through donations from local people, who have contributed £30,000 via a crowdfunding campaign. As manufacture ramps up, there is an expectation that thousands will be manufactured each week, and will save lives of care home workers and residents across the UK.
The University approached Beverley Town Council, asking if the Council could coordinate distribution of the face shields to care homes in the Beverley area for use by their key workers.
Cllr Linda Johnson of Beverley Town Council contacted all the care homes in the Beverley area to let them know about the face shields.
The response was overwhelmingly positive, and over the weekend, Beverley Town Councillors completed the task of delivering 475 of the life-saving pieces of equipment to all the care homes in the Beverley area.
New House in Mill Lane was one of the first care homes to receive their face shields. Staff member, Gemma Wilson said;
“This equipment is amazing. The face shields will help keep staff and residents safe.”
Anita Waslin at Farndale Care Home said;
“We really appreciate everyone who has donated to help develop and manufacture these face shields. I can’t pretend it has always been easy getting hold of PPE. We can’t thank everyone involved enough.”
Beverley Town Councillor, David Tucker, who worked with Hull University to co-ordinate the project said;
“This is precisely the sort of community activity that Beverley Town Council should be involved in at this time of crisis. Key workers in our care homes are so vulnerable to Covid 19, and these face shields are quite literally protecting human life.
“These are fully protective face shields, and we can replenish the equipment whenever homes need it. The shields are designed to be reusable and should be cleaned appropriately at the end of each episode of patient care. Full instructions and cleaning protocol are included with each face mask.”
Its great that the Councillors managed to deliver the Face Shields to the care home, but the real story should be the fundraising efforts of the local people and University of Hull Alumni supporting our nhs/care workers – and a link to the crowdfunding project that is still live with donations of over £30K so far https://spsr.me/MPen
Already we are seeing the money grabbing owners of care homes putting up prices to fleece the elderly even more during this crisis.Any donations to Private homes should come with the caveat that prices will not be increased for the force able future .