The Prime Minister spoke to a
number of British suppliers and manufacturers yesterday evening
(26 March) about rapidly scaling up ventilator production for
patients with coronavirus. The Health Secretary and Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster also joined the call.
To date, there are more than 8,000 ventilators
available to NHS patients, with another 8,000 expected from
existing UK and international manufacturers in the next few
weeks. The Prime Minister has been clear that the UK must step up
production of ventilators even further to support the UK’s
response to the virus and save lives.
The Prime Minister’s call to manufacturers
last week had an overwhelming response, with a wide range of UK
and international businesses offering to help provide services,
including designing and building new devices, manufacturing
components or transporting them to NHS hospitals.
Following this, the Government has partnered a
number of the UK’s leading technology and engineering firms with
smaller manufacturers to rapidly build existing, modified or
newly designed ventilators at speed, with seven priority projects
underway. They are working to improve the speed at which current
UK ventilator manufacturers can produce their devices, with
larger companies changing their existing operations to help
provide the UK with the equipment and personnel it needs for this
effort.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke to a dozen
of the companies involved to thank them for all their work so far
and to discuss ways that the Government could support them to
build ventilators more quickly and in greater quantities for the
frontline in the coming weeks. This included how to accelerate
the manufacturing of particular components needed for this
equipment. The Health Secretary assured the companies involved
that his Department will ensure that regulatory bodies are able
to process the new devices and approve those that meet the
requirements as soon as possible.
Numerous companies are involved in these
critical projects, including among others: High Value
Manufacturing Catapult, Meggitt, Ford, GKN Aerospace, Babcock,
Plexus, Siemens PLC & Siemens Healthineers, McLaren, Rolls
Royce, Airbus, Renault F1, PA Consulting, Renishaw, and GE
Healthcare Systems.
Additionally, the Government is also working
with many other UK manufacturers to build, design and develop new
effective, safe and easy-to-build ventilators.
Government officials are currently working
with expert clinicians and health regulators to test all new
machine designs, as patient safety is of paramount importance.
Any new orders are all dependent on machines passing regulatory
tests, but the Government, manufacturers and regulators are
working at pace to drive this work forward.
