PPE Update from Mrs Yeung

‘Within hours of the last BCS newsletter being sent out, I had a direct call from a medic enquiring about face shields and an email from procurement at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.  I was able to deliver 270 face shields to the medic the following day (70 from the design technology department at Wellington High School and 200 from Open Studios Altrincham).  Through a wonderful friend, from my former life as a nurse, the medic also received 125 face shields designed by an engineer at Nissan and produced in Nissan’s Sunderland factory. 1500 face shields were also sent to procurement from the same factory.

 

As we are running out of some of our original materials at Open Studios, we are working on a new and improved prototype, a sample of which is being sent to procurement at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.

 

This has been a very humbling experience, Open Studios have sent out thousands of face shields to hospitals, police, pharmacists, paramedics and care homes both locally and as far away as Middlesex and Middlesbrough.  Frontline users are contacting us and we are speaking to people working in a variety of settings including neonatal units, radiology departments, surgeons, care in the community etc.  We are working with design technology technicians/teachers at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, Wellington High School and Ashton-on-Mersey High School. The sense of community, of coming together to support each other and of hope is incredible. If we see hope as a state of mind and not as a state of the world, we feel empowered to act and our actions can transform outcomes.  This is the greatest lesson I have learned during lockdown and I have enjoyed seeing all the newsletters and videos that children, parents, teachers and teaching assistants have posted because all of these give us hope and strengthen our BCS community.’