Image: Steve Hill, Clinical Procurement Specialist from Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & Parafix’s General Manager, Steve Barwick overseeing a delivery of a further 10k face shields

During these challenging times, Parafix is in a fortunate position to repurpose some of its production lines from manufacturing customised adhesive tape components to making 20,000 protective face shields per day.

Full face visors are an important part of the personal protective equipment (PPE) healthcare professionals are required to wear to keep them safe whilst treating patients with COVID-19. Due to the shortage, Parafix was keen to deliver the face shields to the frontline NHS workers as soon as possible. Parafix have already started regular deliveries to 8 different hospitals within NHS trusts in Sussex and Bristol, while still speaking with others.

Parafix has two Class 7 Clean Rooms, which they ordinarily use to make supplies for the healthcare and electronic industries, like wound care dressings and lab-on-a-chip components. With already highly regulated environment suitable for production of medical equipment, they have introduced additional safety measures to minimise the risk of spreading COVID-19 on the factory floor.

Given the high demand for face shields, Parafix have just completed a successful recruitment drive and introduced additional shifts to enable us to increase output. In order to make this happen, they are thankful for the support of our community: Tim Loughton MP helped connect Parafix with the right individuals within NHS, while Lancing Business Park and many others helped them with the recruitment. Parafix are also thankful to all of the applicants and our existing staff who have stood up to the challenge and are going above and beyond to support the NHS.

Parafix are honoured to have the opportunity to support the heroic efforts of the frontline NHS staff and to help keep them safe.