Printing specialist in prime position to help NHS
A Nottinghamshire printing specialist is set to diversify to make much-needed PPE equipment to the NHS in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
Prime Group, based in Blidworth, employs nearly 50 staff. Last week, bosses at the firm made the decision to manufacture Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) visors after realising the scale of the supply problem to the NHS.
Jon Tolley is the managing director of Prime Group and is close to the crisis as his wife is a critical care practitioner at an NHS intensive care unit.
He said: “My wife had a shift last week and rang me in the afternoon, deeply concerned as they were running desperately low on PPE, for treating suspected or positive Covid-19 patients.
“She asked me if we could do anything as we use similar materials and the team and I very swiftly worked out that our skills for creating new products quickly, could potentially translate well here. We collected a cleaned up visor and then effectively reverse engineered it to see if we could help.
“We then produced a few prototypes by 6am the following morning, they were tested by the clinicians on the unit, approved and we went into production. It meant we were able to deliver 100 to them in less than 24 hours.
“The staff on my wife’s unit are hugely grateful as they worked perfectly but not as grateful as we all are for the work they are doing, we are just happy that we can do our bit to help protect them. Now, we’re perfecting the process so that we can scale up and deliver this solution as swiftly as we possibly can. 2
Prime will be ramping its manufacturing process up so that it can make 10,000 pieces of equipment a day with a £20,000 funding campaign on GoFundMe. The campaign is just under half way to target.
Bradley Legrand of Carter Legrand Wealth Strategies set up the campaign. He said: “I’ve worked with Jon and the Prime Group team for many years and when I heard about how they were pivoting their offering so swiftly I was hugely impressed.
“They are an incredibly innovative company and they have a great supply chain behind them and processes that ensure these visors can be made at scale and safely, they simply need that financial boost now to make this vision a reality. I know from talking to Jon just how much they have spent already to support this, securing raw materials when demand is so high globally.
“I appreciate that everyone is taking stock of their own situations right now but I would ask anyone who feels inspired and able to donate something, even if it is just £10, to do so. It can make a huge difference to the frontline staff and those they are caring for and it will back a business that is doing its best to be part of the solution in these incredibly challenging times.”
