Labour Party members in Trent Valley have been putting their time on lockdown to good use by manufacturing protective visors for NHS workers in Gedling borough.
Trent Valley branch members have created a pop-up workshop to create the protective visors which are being given out for free to medical and front-line care workers who work or live within the area of Burton Joyce, Stoke Bardolph and parts of Gedling.
The first few masks have now been shipped and now the volunteers are hoping more people on the frontline will apply to receive one.
Branch member and Burton Joyce resident Lee Garland said the group were pleased they could play a small part in protecting frontline workers during the coronavirus crisis.
He said: “We were very keen to attempt to produce PPE, specifically visors, within the branch if we could.
“A laser cutter and the materials were purchased, which were funded by branch members and we are now in a position to supply visors free of charge, on a hyper-local basis to medical and front-line care workers who live or work within Trent Valley.Â
“Whilst we would love to extend the offer further, due to the voluntary and restricted method of production we want to assess local demand in the first instance.
“This is very much a cottage industry effort rather than commercial production, so we don’t want to over-promise, but feel able to supply those locally who are dealing either with no alternative supply or need to bridge gaps in official deliveries.
“We have been able to make our first supply via the practice nurse of a village surgery and have several requests within minutes of sharing the link to our online order form. We aim to deliver these as soon as possible this week.
He added: “It is not anything like the scale of the amazing efforts the Wilkins Group for instance have been producing, but we wanted to play our own small part in protecting our amazing frontline workers too.”
All production takes place in a sterilised area with the operator wearing a facemask and disposable gloves.Â
The design itself was created by Nottingham Hackspace who have shared their design online so that micro-production by volunteers around the country and beyond can be carried out by anyone with a laser cutter. They also have a visor design for 3D printing, and fabric patterns for face masks and medical scrubs.Â
Organisations are able to request the free visors using this form: https://forms.gle/X66dxJahWuGtSCYh9
Data entered will only be used to organise delivery of the visors; contact information is seen by one person organising the production and delivery, and then deleted.
