Update on Personal Protective Equipment from the Cheshire NHS and Local Authority Partners

The Cheshire NHS and local authority partners in both Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester are working closely together to support the essential supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect local health and care workers.

We have been extremely grateful to both existing suppliers of PPE and those organisations that have been offering and sharing their stock of unused PPE for redistribution across Cheshire. The stock we have redistributed meets the correct quality standards required to ensure our health and care workers are properly protected against COVID-19.

We have also been humbled by the outpouring of support and generosity from the public and organisations in the wider community, who have offered to manufacture items such as safety visors and goggles that have been reported in the media as being in short supply.

Due to the need to make sure that these items meet the correct quality standards, in addition to local vetting arrangements already being undertaken, we are now working closely with the Innovation Agency who we’ve engaged to review offers of locally manufactured PPE from our local schools, organisations and individuals in the wider community, if not previously confirmed as compliant.

If you have a suggestion around PPE products that you can offer, please contact them directly via innovationexchange@innovationagencynwc.nhs.uk and they will be able to provide further assistance.

Our health and care staff are doing a fantastic job in exceptionally challenging circumstances and great efforts are being made to provide them with the PPE required to carry out their vital role in tackling COVID-19, keeping them and the people they are caring for safe.

Our hospitals have been helped by the local manufacture of scrubs, which are items of workwear rather than PPE. We are extremely grateful to the volunteers and local businesses who have helped us meet these challenges, which relate to increased use of this workwear and finite laundry capacity.

It is vitally important that everyone follows NHS guidance on hand hygiene, social distancing and caring for the most vulnerable to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Issued by NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group on behalf of the following organisations:

• NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group

• Cheshire East Council

• Cheshire West and Chester Council

• Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

• East Cheshire NHS Trust

• Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust