University of Sheffield donates personal protective equipment to help front-line NHS staff
A donation of personal protective equipment (PPE) has been made to NHS staff at the Northern General Hospital from the University of Sheffield.
Essential University staff still on campus have been busy collecting unused stocks of disposable PPE from the many laboratories and workshops at the University, which are currently closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over 160,000 items filling two vans were delivered to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for their staff. The supplies include eye protection, face masks, coveralls, latex gloves and hand sanitiser.
High-quality PPE is essential equipment for all staff working in clinical settings to protect others, themselves and, crucially, to remain well so the NHS has the capacity to treat all coronavirus patients who are admitted to hospital.
Michael Harper, Chief Operating Officer at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the support we have had from organisations and businesses across the city in response to the Covid-19 outbreak and we are so grateful.
“The University of Sheffield has been incredible not just in terms of this donation but also by working in partnership with our engineers and clinical teams to produce visors and of course many of the medical and nursing students are also volunteering to be part of the teams in our hospitals providing care.”
Supporting Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and the NHS has been at the forefront of the University of Sheffield’s response to Covid-19. As well as donating PPE, University engineers have worked with teams at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals to design and produce face shields, the team at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) has been part of a national effort to manufacture more ventilators, researchers from across the faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health are supporting Covid-19 testing, NHS key workers have been taking advantage of University car parking and accommodation made available for them to use during the pandemic and Samuel Fox House, the Sheffield Medical School’s teaching facility, is being used to provide clinical skills training for returning care workers; ensuring they are ready to return to the front-lines over the next few weeks.
Speaking about the University’s work to support the NHS, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, Professor Koen Lamberts, said:
“Like so many universities in the UK, one of our first responses to the Covid-19 pandemic was to ask ‘what can we do to help?’. We are very pleased to be able to support the NHS through research, innovation and donations of equipment such as PPE.
“South Yorkshire has an excellent NHS and care workforce and we want to thank every single key worker who has worked so hard to support our region during this devastating pandemic.”
For more information about how the University of Sheffield is responding to Covid-19 visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/coronavirus/our-response