Staff can continue to provide care during Coronavirus crisis with 3D printed PPE

Care workers at our Newtown branch have been given extra protection to help them carry out frontline care for the elderly and vulnerable thanks to a donation of 3D printed PPE (personal protective equipment) face shields (April, 2020).

In addition to the equipment they already have, staff working at our Newtown branch were given 100 full masks by Andrew Billington from Kerry who makes them using a 3D printer.

Forty-year-old Andrew said: “It has been widespread news that there is a distinct lack of PPE for our key workers, so I decided to do something about it and began printing full face shields using my 3D printer at home.

“I launched a fundraiser to raise money to buy materials and within 24 hours had raised £1,000. The response has been overwhelming and I have been inundated with requests for shields.

“I have produced a total of 600 shields for hospitals and doctor’s surgeries in my local area with the help of Andrew Akehurst from Abermule, who got in touch after he saw my fundraiser.”

Each mask costs 80p to make. People wishing to donate towards the making of more masks, can do so via https://bit.ly/2RBIqUI. Any leftover funds will be donated to Shrewsbury hospital.

Jane Jones, our Newtown Branch Manager, said: “All of our carers wear PPE on a daily basis when looking after our elderly and vulnerable service users, however, like hospitals, surgeries and other care companies across the country, this has had to be stepped up during the Coronavirus outbreak.

“It has been widely reported that there is a lack of PPE provided to key workers by the Government and we have had to do our best with what we do have. When we saw Andrew was making face shields, we thought they were fantastic and ideal for our care workers, who work to keep the elderly and vulnerable safe at home and away from the NHS.

“Our work in the community is essential and we’re protecting those who need care from the virus, so any PPE we can get is a real help. We’d like to thank Andrew for the donation of face shields for our carers, they have come in extremely useful and give an extra bit of reassurance to carers and service users.”