Uni pandemic effort in spotlight
STAFF, students and the wider Loughborough University community have been working hard to help protect and assist those fighting the coronavirus pandemic head-on.
From donating personal protective equipment (PPE), to advising healthcare workers on having difficult conversations, the Loughborough family have shown their support for frontline workers in a variety of ways.
As well as donating pre-existing equipment, academics have made use of the University’s expertise in 3D printing to provide more essential supplies.
Colleagues from across the Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, the School of Design and Creative Arts, and the Research and Enterprise Office have come together to supply Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust with 2,000 face visors.
Working in partnership with engineers at Toyota Manufacturing UK, staff produced frames for the visors and helped improve the speed and quality of production.
Colleagues within the Wolfson also supplied 200 laser-cut visors to Monarch Care Homes, which provide nursing and care for older people.
Dr Paul Roach, senior lecturer in biomaterials and interface science within Loughborough’s School of Science, has also been using his 3D printer at home to create attachments for face masks to make them more comfortable than elastic around the ears – and his children have been assisting him.
The attachments are being used in local GP surgeries and care homes.
Professor Mark Lewis, Dean of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, is working closely with the Government to identify resources, equipment and skilled personnel at Loughborough to help with the implementation of COVID-19 testing centres across the UK.
This includes the loaning of equipment to organisations such as Randox Biosciences, who are setting up testing facilities to ramp up the country’s fight against the virus.
The School have also provided the National Biosample Centre with protective gear and equipment supplies to support their work in analysing swab samples, to determine whether COVID-19 is present.
Professor Lewis and colleagues from the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NCSEM) have also been assisting with keeping NHS clinics open where needed to ensure that important healthcare activities still go ahead.
Loughborough University experts have been sharing their expertise to help healthcare workers and ensure safe practice.
In order to support manufacturers in creating ventilators that work as intended and staff can understand and operate effectively and safely, the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors published national guidance on usability and testing of rapidly manufactured ventilators, to which human factors colleagues within the School of Design and Creative Arts contributed.
Professor Sue Hignett is leading a dedicated panel that has been established to directly advise on how best to design the machines.
Also supporting the performance and safety of NHS workers are Patrick Waterson and Thomas Jun from the School of Design and Creative Arts, who are actively advising on data collection/analysis for improving organisational learning at the NHS Nightingale Hospital in London.
Professor Malcolm Cook, Associate Dean of Research (ABCE), has also been involved with the Nightingale Hospital in London, advising the Government through the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineering (CIBSE) and the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) on the ventilation design of the new facility.
Dr Ruth Parry and a team of academics from the School of Social Sciences and Humanities have provided guidance to clinicians who are likely to be having – and training people who will have – difficult conversations with patients suffering from COVID19 or those closest to them.
Their recommendations have been shared with NHS Health Education England and used to develop a series of open access resources that aim to support healthcare staff.
Academics from the chemistry department in the School of Science are involved in early-stage testing focusing on research breath systems, to see if it is possible to detect COVID19 infection in breath. This work is taking place with partners at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Dr Sourav Ghosh, an expert in healthcare engineering in the School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, is also in the initial stages of exploring if COVID-19 can be detected early in the infection phase through saliva samples.
A team of researchers within the School of Sport, Exercise and Health
Sciences is coordinating the UK stage of a worldwide survey that will provide us with ongoing information about how people are responding to government messages and strategies, and what impact social distancing is having on the progress of the pandemic.
In the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Professor Sabina Mihelj and Dr Václav Štětka are investigating how citizens in four European countries are using the media to keep up to date with the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.
Loughborough’s Professor Jo Aldridge, director of research for social and policy studies, is currently involved in a new international study that will explore the experience of family carers during the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the ‘Caring through Coronavirus’ project, Professor Aldridge will conduct interviews over the next three months and share the findings from the study every week with key Government departments and charities.
A new coronavirus survey was also launched in April by Dr Gemma Witcomb and a team of researchers in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences to better understand the impact of the virus on daily life and learn more about health and wellbeing in exceptional circumstances, such as prolonged periods of isolation and changes in exercise routines.