The University of Derby has teamed up with a medical packaging firm to assemble and supply thousands of visors to the NHS.
Researchers based at the university’s Institute for Innovation in Sustainable Engineering research centre have come up with single-use and reusable visors, which can be mass manufactured for use in the short-term.
Both visor types are currently being tested at local GP surgeries in Derby, although the primary focus is on creating the single use version.
This is an existing lightweight ‘one-size-fits-all’ full-screen design, specially adapted for staff treating and caring for coronavirus patients.
According to the university, it will be flexible enough to be easily attached in a number of ways and can be produced in high volumes very quickly.
It will work with Riverside Medical Packaging, in Newmarket Drive,. to assemble and supply the visors.
Once evaluated and manufactured, the visors will be distributed to staff at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust.
Institute director Professor Paul Wood said: “Colleagues were keen to contribute to the challenge of supplying PPE and support the effort to protect NHS staff and carers.
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“The wide range of skills and expertise within the team, combined with the range of facilities we have, has enabled a robust design to be quickly optimised, and assessed before evaluation by users.”
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The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Kathryn Mitchell, said: “The university has already made significant contributions within Derby and Derbyshire to the work being done to treat people who have fallen seriously ill after contracting coronavirus.
“This includes the supply of thousands of items of PPE kit, not to mention the hundreds of students who are supporting nursing staff on the frontline in our hospitals.
“The fact that we can also bolster the supply of essential equipment, which helps to protect hospital staff from infection is yet another example of the university’s prompt and purposeful civic engagement with our community, businesses and essential services at a time when it is so vital to work together to confront this crisis.”