Enter Featured in MADE HERE NOW Article on Reusable PPE
24-09-2020
Published on the 22nd September 2020 the article: ‘New bid to fashion UK-made protective wear for virus second wave’ by Peter Marsh features Fashion-Enter Ltd as an industry leader seeking government support for manufacturing reusable PPE.
From the article:
A pioneering initiative to make reusable hospital gowns in UK factories has been revived, boosting hopes that the government will support measures to source more personal protective equipment (PPE) for Covid-19 domestically and improve its sustainability.
The revamped scheme comes after the demise of an earlier effort led by the Cabinet Office and Department of Health and Social Care to organise domestic production of PPE, following serious shortages in the early stages of the pandemic that contributed to the UK’s high initial death toll.
The new project is relatively modest in that it involves just one company – London-based Fashion-Enter – which is making small quantities of gowns for testing by National Health Service experts to ensure they can withstand repeated, intensive washing. Most gowns used in the NHS and in other health fields such as dentistry are imported from countries including China and worn once.
The DHSC said it was “committed to putting in place a UK supply chain” for reusable gowns. “Positive discussions are under way so that orders can be confirmed as soon as trials have successfully concluded.”
The department said that any further contracts would depend on the trials but gave no time scale. Ahead of a second wave of Covid-19, the government has spent heavily on securing PPE supplies, from UK and overseas producers.
Apart from Fashion-Enter, Manchester-based Private White VC is another textiles firm in a good position to win orders at a later stage of the project. The company is making more than 1m disposable gowns for the NHS under an earlier government initiative linked to the coronavirus crisis. It has also made smaller quantities of reusable gowns in a test run several months ago that could be scaled up. Other companies including Barbour made mainly disposable gowns in a series of largely uncoordinated efforts early in the crisis.
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With thanks to Peter Marsh
