SERC Helping to Meet Demand for PPE in the fight against Coronavirus
Innovation at SERC is providing solutions to improve the supply items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the health service.
The South Eastern Regional College (SERC) is helping with the call for PPE by gathering its supplies to pass over to the services that need it most in the fight against Coronavirus.
Aurla McLoughlin, Deputy Head of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at SERC, said: “We have all heard the many news’ reports detailing the severe shortages of PPE in our hospitals and healthcare settings.
PPE is essentially any device or appliance designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against one or more health and safety hazards.
Aurla added: “As you can image, we use a lot of this equipment in the College, from rubber gloves in hair and beauty, science and animal care programmes, to plastic aprons in catering and hospitality, to masks in motor vehicle and engineering, to high viz vests in construction.
“Many of these items are required in the fight against Coronavirus and since all our students are online during this unprecedented lockdown period, SERC is coordinating the collection of all the PPE in our facilities which can be passed on to the services that need it most at this time.”
The College is also working with industry specialists to possibly produce PPE. Trevor Breadon, Head of School of Engineering and Computing added: “In the engineering programmes at SERC, we have state of the art equipment which is used for teaching students to industry standards including 3D printers.
“The engineering team have been working with specialist industry and healthcare contacts to produce PPE in the form of a a reusable face mask in which the filter can be replaced. Essentially, this means that one mask can be used many times by an individual working on the front line. We are also hoping to start production of face shields.
“Obviously, we have been in touch with the relevant authorities to let them know we have the facilities to produce these items and are awaiting the necessary testing and approval.”
SERC have also been collecting baby monitors that staff and students might have at home which they are no longer using, again, to be passed on to healthcare teams.
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