Coronavirus: UK manufacturers urged to consider switching to making ventilators

Matt Hancock has called on British manufacturers to consider switching parts of their production to the making of medical ventilators needed to treat rising numbers of coronavirus patients.

The health secretary said on Sunday the UK had 5,000 ventilators but needed many more times that number. Hancock said “anyone who can” should “turn their engineering minds and production lines to making them … We need to produce more.”

Hancock claimed on the Andrew Marr Show that the government was in discussion with “all kinds of companies”, including car manufacturers and military engineers. Rolls-Royce, JCB and Unipart were all expected to speak to the prime minister on a conference call, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.

The JCB chairman, Lord Bamford, said: “We have been approached by the prime minister to see if we can help with the production of ventilators. We have research and engineering teams actively looking at the request at the moment. It’s unclear as yet if we can assist, but as a British company we will do whatever we can to help during the unprecedented times our country is facing.”

A spokesperson from Unipart confirmed that the company had been approached by the government: “Unipart is not currently engaged in the manufacture of medical products although our company has significant levels of expertise in volume manufacturing, some very skilled engineers, and world-leading capability in logistics. We’re pleased to be involved in such an important project and doing everything we can to help.”

According to ITV’s Robert Peston, Rolls-Royce had not been approached by the government. Peston tweeted: “I just spoke to Warren East, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce, one of the UK’s most advanced engineering companies. And he says government has not contacted him yet to discuss whether his or his suppliers’ facilities can be repurposed to make the many thousands of respirators.”

Roll-Royce did not reject the possibility that its production could partially switch to the manufacturing of ventilation equipment. A spokesperson said: “We understand that the government is exploring ways in which businesses can help deal with the outbreak of Covid-19. As they shape their plans, we are keen to do whatever we can to help the government and the country at this time and will look to provide any practical help we can.”

When Marr questioned the usefulness of new ventilators without extra specialist medical staff, Hancock said: “We’ve got the number of doctors that we have, we want to bring people who are recently retired back into service and, for instance, release doctors from some other duties and get them back into the health service.”

Hancock said the NHS would be stopping other activities including elective or non-urgent surgeries.

He said there was “a massive effort going on” to make sure the necessary staff and equipment was in place to tackle the outbreak effectively.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors’ Association UK and an intensive care doctor, applauded the health secretary’s remarks on the procurement of extra ventilation equipment and additional beds, but said that without more specialist staff such efforts would be “pointless”.

“This announcement will be welcomed by doctors across the country who have been shouting from the rooftops about the lack of intensive care resources,” he said.

“Whilst NHS hospitals make emergency plans to create ITU [intensive treatment unit] beds and the government purchases more ventilators, the elephant in the room is the lack of highly trained intensive care nurses and doctors. The NHS faces this pandemic on a background of severe understaffing with almost 43,000 nurse and 10,000 doctor vacancies. It is pointless acquiring new ventilators without enough highly trained staff to operate them.”

Parmar added that the purchasing of extra capacity in private hospitals may solve the issue of a lack of physical space in the NHS, but said there were “very few” intensive care beds in private hospitals in the UK.

“The systematic under-resourcing of the NHS and exodus of staff that the government has presided over has ultimately left the country with a severe lack of specialist intensive care nurses and doctors,” he said.

The UK ranks 24 out of 31 in comparison with other European nations in terms of the number of critical care beds available per 100,000 inhabitants.

Doctors and hospital trusts have revealed that millions of patients will have care delayed as hospitals cancel non-urgent operations, including some surgery for people with heart and lung conditions.

Other countries in Europe are also racing to buy or produce more ventilators, with Italy already facing such a dramatic shortage that patients with the best survival chances are being prioritised.

Germany has ordered an additional 10,000 ventilators from a domestic supplier, the FT reported. One such ventilator costs about €17,000 (£15,400).