BRITISH-BASED GBRacing has joined the global fight against the COVID-19 virus by moving resources into producing face guards for health care professionals.
They’ve teamed up with their parent company, Lewis Banks & Sons (LBS), to make a simple but vital headband face guard to be used by healthcare professionals.
The brand was fired into action by the government's call to arms and their 'Ventilator Challenge' to help out with vital medical equipment. GBRacing and LBS though became frustrated by the slow uptake of the firm’s offer, something they attribute to the massive response from companies across the nation.
LBS' managing director, Graham Banks, decided that it was time to take action and, assisted by his daughter, Dr Charlotte Banks (Phd, MEng), set about redesigning a simple headband-based face-guard that would be both affordable and fast to produce as an injection-moulded part. Son, Tim Banks, was tasked with logistics including coming up with a new brand name and producing an e-commerce website in just 48 hours — this has truly been a family effort from the fifth-generation family-run engineering company in East Barnet.
As a result of the firm’s efforts, they have now produced their own tooling and CNC injection moulding systems, with the ability to produce 1,500 of the life-saving facemasks a day, offering the products on a not-for-profit basis from their own bespoke website: face-guard.co.uk.
While the products are not NHS approved, due to the complex regulations involved and lengthy approval times, they are eligible for use in care homes and other medical settings, meaning more of the already approved masks on the market can be utilised by NHS hospitals and health centres.
With the vast majority (84%) of care homes being privately owned, and therefore liable for the cost of their own protective equipment, the onus lies more and more with care-home owners and employers to provide hard-working staff with suitable equipment. Our aim is that by producing high-quality, easy-to-use, and reusable cost-effective equipment — at cost price — no employer will be unable to afford to protect its staff.
If you know somebody who works in a care home or other healthcare setting that could make use of the new masks, please send them to face-guard.co.uk.
