Please help us get vital PPE to those who need it!

Two weeks ago a friend of mine arrived for her shift at work. She is a locum doctor, taking on extra shifts to help out as much as she can during the Coronavirus crisis. When she arrived the only PPE available to her was a pair of plastic gloves. She is a friend, a wife, mother to two girls, a daughter and a sister, and she was helping patients with Covid 19 without the correct equipment.

Several companies and numerous enthusiasts have started using 3D printers to help make visors. Although this is a great initiative, 3D printing is a fairly slow process more suited to prototyping than serial production. We have developed an alternative way of making visors using water-jet and laser cutting: 3 minutes to cut each headband instead of 2 hours or so to print. Having started work on this exactly 1 week ago, the design work is complete, the supply chain is set up, prototypes have been made and tested and we are ready to start production. We've also made the contacts needed to get our visors into the system.

We know there are people working both locally and nationally in health and social care settings who are still in desperate need of visors. We believe that if people are willing to put themselves at risk the least they deserve is the right equipment to keep them safe. Although we are contributing our own time without charge, the parts and materials required for each visor cost us £8. Initially we are hoping to raise £8000 to produce 1000 visors over the next two weeks. I'll also be uploading the design in full to my company website so it's freely available across the world.

Instead of giving a clap for carers we ask you to give cash to carers. – the money you might have spent buying a coffee on the way to work, or parking the car or buying an Easter egg. Let’s give our carers the equipment they deserve.