Urgent NHS PPE appeal launched by firm in battle against Covid-19

A local firm is urging people to help them ‘work around the clock’ to produce vital PPE equipment for frontline NHS staff and other key workers to protect them against coronavirus. 

Optimum Group, which operates franchises of multiple Costa Coffee and Kaspa’s branches in the region, would urgently like to team up with anyone with laser cutters to produce safety visors for those who need them with the Covid-19 peak fast approaching.

The materials needed are being kindly donated by the group with the aim of manufacturing over 30,000 urgently needed PPE visors for local hospitals, care homes, funeral parlours, and others who so desperately need them.

Optimum Group founder Dave Connor said: “We were all watching the news and we were all devastated to see that frontline NHS staff and other key workers cannot get the PPE they need.

“Lots of lives are on the line here. 

The Optimum Group is urging people to help them produce PPE safety equipment in the fight against coronavirus

“We initially donated £1,000 to help but we want to do much more.” 

The Optimum Group has secured a large quantity of perspex and a blueprint for producing medical visors suitable for NHS staff and other key workers in the fight against coronavirus and Covid-19. 

The firm has been trading since 2006 and operates 29 Costa Coffee stores in Liverpool, Ormskirk, Formby, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn and Sale, as well as two Kaspa’s Desserts outlets in Liverpool and St Helens. 

It is one of the most highly populated Costa franchise clusters in the UK. The 29 Costa branches boast 394 Costa staff while Kaspa’s has two branches with 48 staff. 

After seeing an appeal on Stand Up For Southport about The Blue Anchor pub, which is using a 3D printer to make visors, Mr Connor delivered perspex so they could continue making the vital safety equipment. 

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But with 3D printers able to make eight visors a day, he is now urging anyone with laser printers – which can make the products much quicker and in much greater quantities – to come forward. 

He said: “Lesley from the Blue Anchor is one of several people we have helped who have 3D printers and she is going to come and collect the perspex from us today.
“She is going to do what she can to make visors, and says she is going to work through the day and night making them. 

“We are now looking for anyone out there with laser printers. 

“A 3D printer can make eight visors a day. A laser cutter can make 150 a day. 

“We will provide perspex free to schools, colleges, businesses and others with laser printers who can make perspex masks quickly and in great numbers.” 

The Optimum Group is now looking to make perspex visors themselves.

Mr Connor said: “We are normally out there making cups of coffee, now we are looking to make perspex visors, but we have to do something. 

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“We are looking to source some laser printers ourselves and through volunteers among our staff, we are going to mass produce as many as we can. 

“We want to work around the clock to make thousands of visors. 

“So many people need them urgently. NHS staff, care homes, people working in funeral parlours, so many more. 

“These visors need to be on the front line within the next three to eight days. 

“The clock is ticking. 

“There is a great need now and it is going to get greater. 

“I have been speaking with a friend of mine who is a consultant at a hospital in Liverpool and he believes the peak will hit us in just a few days’ time.”

The urgent call for help for PPE equipment has been echoed by Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram. 

He said: “Our key workers in local authorities, the fire and police services and public transport are on the frontline in tackling coronavirus, often supporting the most vulnerable people in our communities.

“We have a responsibility to protect these staff, and the vulnerable people they support, with the right PPE, but this is now in dangerously short supply across the region.

“That is why we are taking this unprecedented step to ask businesses and community organisations if they can help with any supplies of PPE – either by donating any supplies they can spare or on a commercial basis.”

If anyone can help please email: dave.connor@theoptimumgroup.co.uk