The Safer Vision PPE Partnership

Leighton Park’s humble PPE initiative to support NHS frontline staff tackling Covid-19 has quickly become a hub of pop up face shields factories involving 18 schools, one university and three commercial businesses across Berkshire! Raising £28,000 for materials through Go Fund Me and delivering over 37,000 shields, the partnership has certainly made a difference to almost 500 organisations desperate for vital PPE. The shields have been welcomed by hospitals, hospices, care homes, GP surgeries, schools, councils, supermarkets and many other public facing organisations who care for vulnerable people.

With a modest ambition of 200 shields, Head of Design & Technology, Mark Smith, was aiming to do what he could to help from his workshop over the Easter break.  “Not every superhero wears a cape, but they do all wear masks!” he joked as he began but his cheerful spirit and can-do attitude quickly drew colleagues resident on the boarding school site to help. Using the DT department’s laser cutter to create re-usable plastic headbands out of polypropylene stock, the team attached disposable A4 PVC sheets initially donated by the School’s Reading-based stationery suppliers, Frasers Office Supplies Ltd.

The generosity of the community and public providing financial support for materials through GoFundMe was matched by the enthusiasm and willingness of other schools and organisations to get involved and commit their resources to Leighton Park’s initiative. The desire to make a difference shone through every conversation and it wasn’t long before there was a hub partnership in place, being directed from hub HQ at Leighton Park. Those who were keen to help make a difference and contribute their laser cutting resources were, Denefield School, Prospect School, Reading Blue Coat School, Holme Grange, The Forest School, Brakenhale School, Edgbarrow School, Waingels College, The Bulmershe School, Luckley House, Little Heath, Ranelagh, Reading College, Garth Hill College, Hurst School, Maiden Erlegh School, the University of Reading and three local businesses with high spec machinery, outside the education sector, Neal’s Export Packaging Ltd, in Silchester, rLAB, a community workshop space and DesignWorks in Windsor.

“I’ve been going into work on this during the evenings as the business is too busy in the day,” said Matt Bargus, 3D CAD designer at Neal’s Export Packaging, when he joined the operation. “I really hope it makes a difference. It is a clever design and if it just saves one person it will have been worth it.” Matt’s CNC machine can cut out an entire polypropylene sheet of headbands in just 11 and a half minutes, a job which takes the Leighton Park laser cutter an hour.

At Denefield School production also got more efficient by the minute. From creating 200 face shields on their first day of production, the small team soon saw a daily output of 500. Contrary to Leighton Park who had access to the materials but required laser cutters, Tina Simpson at Denefield School said, “I had the facilities but not the materials and saw that Leighton Park were looking for helpers.”

Sonja Allen from the Design Technology department at Forest School remarked “We know a lot of people who work in the NHS who are treating patients without the proper PPE. It is just the right thing to do.” Working with her colleague, Nicky Collins, the two-strong team, were another school making a significant impact after spotting the call for support on social media.

Response in the community has not ceased to be uplifting and rewarding. Bernadine Blease from Berkshire Healthcare responded to their delivery of 500 face shields with the message, “A huge ‘Thank You’ from all at Berkshire Healthcare. I think you could see from the smiles, how happy our teams are with the visors. They like the minimalist design as it’s less hot than the foam-type head bands.”

Gareth Williams, Chief Commercial Officer at Choice Care Group, which delivers specialist care across 63 residential care homes and a further 23 supported living homes for people with learning disabilities, autism, mental health conditions and associated complex needs said: “With a frontline staff of 1,500 across the South of England, we were extremely grateful to receive 1,600 face shields from Leighton Park School. The local community support shown across this pandemic has been second to none and with the government facing their own PPE struggles, it’s been amazing that Leighton Park School has been able to supply these critical goods for us. On receipt of the goods the staff were over the moon and highly appreciative. This pandemic continues to be a running challenge for the homes, but these selfless acts of kindness from the local community are what keeps spirits high and momentum lifted. We all make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. The school should be very proud of that.”

Unphased by the end of the Easter break, the face shields hub and our dedicated partners in production continued to commit to making vital PPE for the NHS and keyworkers in the healthcare sector. Despite expectation that there would be an inevitable reduction in output as the demands of delivering distance learning became more pressing, 20 furloughed support staff at Leighton Park volunteered their free time to assist with the continuation of the effort as teachers returned to the preparation, delivery and marking of their virtual lessons. Combined with this, the Orthotics Dept at Royal Berkshire Hospital, began to explore ways of producing an adapted version of the face shield design within their own workshop.

Mark Smith updated “Even Old Leightonians, current parents and some kind residents in the local area have volunteered to deliver face shields. It’s such a community effort. I think everyone wants to play a part where they can. We’re getting fewer individual orders, but each order is for a greater volume so that obviously makes it easier to co-ordinate deliveries. We can quickly bundle them up and get them out; it’s brilliant!”

The work of the face shields initiative even attracted the notice of the national press and national television coverage on BBC One’s documentary series, ‘Britain’s Volunteer Army’ presented by Ross Kemp.