Villagers mobilise to assemble face masks

RESIDENTS OF DESFORD MAKE THOUSANDS OF SHIELDS FOR NHS

PEOPLE from a “very special village” have mobilised to provide PPE for the NHS, care homes and key workers.

Over the past five weeks, volunteers in Desford have manufactured more than 10,000 face visors.

David Wimpenny, who coordinated the activity and funded the purchase of materials, with support from the European Space Agency, was overwhelmed by the response to his request for help to assemble the face shields.

A conventional disposable face shield design, based on a sheet of transparent film with a foam headband and a strip of elastic to hold the shield in place, was selected.

David said: “Within 24 hours we had enough volunteers to get started and within a matter of days we had support from over 60 families, which says a great deal about the people of Leicestershire and this very special village.”

The first job was to adapt the design to ensure it could be made at home by the volunteers. Rather than rely on sophisticated manufacturing equipment, a simpler approach was adopted where only a pair of scissors and hole punch was required to assemble the face shields by hand.

Prototypes of the face shields were sent to several hospitals across the Midlands to gain feedback on the new design and, where required, changes were made to secure approval for supplying to the hospital.

The next job was to secure the materials required to make the face shields, including 10,000 pre-cut strips of polyurethane foam from High Wycombe,

A4 sheets of visor material from a SME in Dorset and over 4km of elastic from Leicester.

Boxes containing all of the material needed to make 100 face shields, together with instructions, templates to ensure accurate cutting of film and assembly were delivered to each household – taking great care to maintain social distancing.

When the face shields were finished they were collected and each batch was carefully checked before being carefully packaged to comply with NHS requirements.

The face shields were then quarantined for four days before being supplied to hospitals.

By the end of May, just five weeks from initial receipt of material:

■ 10,000 face shields had been assembled.

■ 8,000 had been supplied to hospitals, the majority going to Peterborough City Hospital and Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

■ 1,000 had been supplied to care homes, care workers and GP surgeries in Leicestershire.

■ 600 had been supplied to key workers including teachers.

The final 400 are available to support vulnerable people and reduce the risk of infection as the lockdown is eased.