Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Medical equipment sent to address NHS supply shortage
Personal protective equipment (PPE) including thousands of gloves, disposable aprons, goggles, masks, lab coats, and clinical waste bags have been distributed to Leeds Student Medical Practice in the city centre.
Colleagues arranged the donation of the protective equipment - usually used in the university’s sport and exercise science labs - to ensure healthcare workers are properly equipped.
Meanwhile, Army personnel have visited the university’s Headingley Campus to pick up equipment and consumables for new COVID-19 testing labs being established across the country.
The equipment, ranging from high-spec pipettes to micro-centrifuges and vortex mixers, will be used as part of the government’s new national testing strategy.
Professor Peter Slee, Leeds Beckett University Vice Chancellor, said:
“During this national health emergency Leeds Beckett is committed to doing all we can as a community to help slow the progress of COVID-19 and to mitigate its impact.
“This personal protective equipment would normally be used for student teaching, however given the current shortage of equipment we want to ensure it is used to help protect frontline NHS workers from the risk or coronavirus.
“We are also able to play our part in providing resources to support the new national screening programme. This equipment will enhance the testing capability and development of the new testing sites.
“We will continue to look at ways from across the university that we can support the NHS and the Government in the battle against COVID-19.”
The PPE equipment donated by LBU includes 60 boxes of gloves, 50 lab coats, individually packed alcohol wipes, tubs of disinfectant wipes, 30 boxes of facial tissues, disposal aprons and clinical waste bags.
The collection was coordinated by Helen Steel (pictured right), Principal Learning Support Officer at the university’s Carnegie School of Sport, with support from Scarlett Drury (pictured left), Senior Lecturer in PE, and Emma Payne, Principal Learning Support Officer.
Other recent LBU support in the battle against the pandemic has included providing teaching spaces, catering facilities and meeting rooms for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to recruit and train 1,000 non-clinical staff.
In addition, 70 final year nursing students have now joined the NHS workforce six months early, and a team of physiotherapists from the university are working at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber. Their roles will include training 300 staff at the new Harrogate-based field hospital.