Chamber supports charity turning its hands to making essential PPE for health workers

The team hard at work making face masks for essential workers.

THE Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce has made a donation to support the Avocet Trust team who are turning their hands to making essential PPE equipment for care workers who may be exposed to the coronavirus.

The Avocet Trust’s Matthews Enterprise Trust Day Service which normally provides educational and employment training services for vulnerable people has had to close temporarily, so the staff decided they would try to help address the shortage of PPE by making their own face shields and distributing them among the local community.

They came up with a simple design for manufacturing them and hope to achieve the CE accredited standard.

With a small team of four staff, they are able to manufacture 200 of these face shields per day at a cost of around 50p in materials. They are producing the face shields using simple office equipment and plan to produce 1,000 of them per week for the next 10 weeks.

The Trust says there is no reason why the current problem of a shortage of such eye and face protection should exist. With a relatively small budget to purchase some more efficient equipment, and a small staffing budget, the team can envisage producing thousands of these face shields.

Chamber Chief Executive, Dr Ian Kelly, said this is a great project and a good example of a charity helping out our carers when their usual role in the community has had to be suspended because of the virus. The Chamber is pleased to be able to support them with their efforts”.

The Chief Executive of the Avocet Trust, Les Howell, said: “Rather than furlough the Support Staff at the Avocet Trust we decided to produce Face Shields because of the shortage of PPE for people at risk of contracting the COVID-19 Virus, such as Health & Social Care Staff and other key workers interfacing with the public.

“We decided to issue the face shields at no cost, relying on donations to continue purchasing the materials to continue manufacturing this PPE.

“Avocet is extremely grateful to the Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce for being the first organisation to offer a donation to Avocet and the Matthews Enterprise Team to continue production”.

The Avocet Trust is appealing for further financial support to enable them to give these face shields away for free to anyone who is working with people who may be exposed to the coronavirus, such as doctors and nurses and all other hospital staff, as well as care workers supporting vulnerable people in the community.

They also need assistance to fast track the CE accreditation process from a local company which has already been through the process and they would also be interested in working collaboratively with another company to upscale the production of the face shields.

If you require face masks for your company, or can donate to the project, the Trust’s Chief Executive Les Howell is asking you to get in touch with him on 07855 316589.