Face shields designed by engineers at a Nottingham university are now being produced in their thousands following approvals.
The University of Nottingham is supplying 5,000 of the face shields to the city’s NHS and community healthcare staff who are working on the coronavirus frontline.
The move into production, using 3D printing, follows CE and BSI approval of the design.
Building on an open-source design of headband originally from HP, the team in the university’s Faculty of Engineering made modifications to ensure the face shield could pass a regulatory tests.
They will be provided in packs to the NHS, with five replacement visors per face shield as well as instructions for use.
Professor Richard Hague, the university’s director of the Centre for Additive Manufacturing, said: "Our primary goal was to ensure that we delivered a PPE solution that was safe and certified so that healthcare workers can have confidence in the equipment they’re using.
"Using the flexibility of additive manufacturing and laser cutting technology, we've been able to arrive at a design, get it tested and approved, and then manufactured and delivered in a very quick time-frame.
"We have also had incredible support from our collaborators in getting these face shields to the NHS.
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“The teamwork and willingness of people to help has been truly heart-warming and we are all extremely proud to be able to contribute to the nation’s fight against coronavirus."
Dr James Hopkinson, local GP and joint clinical chairman of NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, said: “We are extremely grateful to the University of Nottingham for developing and supplying the visors, which will make a real difference to thousands of healthcare staff working on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Packs of the face shields have already been delivered to local GP practices and we have plans in place to share them with a range of other key workers such as people who care for others at home.
“I think this is a really positive example of talented professionals working across normal boundaries in order to support our local communities in what is an unprecedented and very challenging time.”