For several months, we were the main supplier to the city’s Royal United Hospital (RUH). The face shield design, created by our Department of Mechanical Engineering, was translated into six languages by UN organisation SODEIT and distributed around the world, including in developing countries.
“There have been quite a few research articles that have overviewed the designs and shared them openly and freely so they can be used in other countries,” explains Dr Alexander Lunt. “For example, in the US several of the designs were replicated, which is really nice to see.”
As well as receiving multiple awards and recognition from prominent figures such as the Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset and our Chancellor HRH the Earl of Wessex, the project has strengthened the University's relationship with the RUH.
“There are future projects that have come about through the connections made by our PPE endeavour,” Alexander continues. “I’ve started a final-year project which is looking at patient repositioning on the intensive care unit at the RUH, so we’re designing a device for that. We’ve also got another team that are working on redesigning some patient transport systems for ICU.
"The important thing for me is that we’ve established this relationship [which ties into one of the University’s research Beacons] and the idea is that it will grow.”