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The PeRSo respirator was not only used in Southampton, but across 16 other NHS trusts. Crucially, staff absences were lower at Prof Elkington’s hospital than the rest of the country. <\/p>\n
He and a colleague, Prof Hywel Morgan, both later won an MBE for their work producing the respirator, but despite talks with Dyson, they decided not to patent their design. Instead they made it open source – publishing the design on the internet so that others could reproduce it in South Africa among other countries. <\/p>\n
Fast-forward to 2023 and supplying PPE remains a “deeply emotive issue” for everyone “because so many people got burnt,” says one senior NHS manager who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n
He specifically references how procurement managers at the height of the crisis found themselves desperately paying high prices for products largely from China, some of which turned out to be unsuitable or even fake.<\/p>\n
Three billion pieces of PPE were used by the NHS in just the first six months of the crisis, according to research., external<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n