Hospital given new breathing aids- thanks to Formula One team just down the road

Anglia
Northamptonshire
Wednesday 22 April 2020 at 11:46am

Northampton General Hospital have taken delivery of new breathing devices to be used in the fight against COVID-19 - thanks to Mercedes-Benz just down the road.

The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices were made at the Mercedes-Benz Technology Centre in Brixworth in Northampton and designed by the University College London and Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (HPP.)

The devices work by supporting patients to receive a steady flow of oxygen through their nose and mouth while wearing a mask. This treatment reduces the effort it takes to breathe in, as the pressure from the oxygen supply helps the lungs to stay open.

A volunteer patient with the CPAP device. Credit: UCL

These new devices will help patients with covid-19 who need assistance to breathe more easily. The small device works with an oxygen mask to make sure the patient has enough oxygen going into their lungs. Using these CPAP devices means that we don’t always need to give more invasive treatment to patients and use a full ventilator machine. We will be using these new CPAP machines to treat our covid-19 patients as part of cutting edge trials designed to improve care. It’s fantastic to have the support of local businesses and we would like to thank the teams from the University College London, Mercedes-AMG HPP and NHS England for producing these machines so quickly for us. Thanks to the hard work of our supplies, stores, medical electronics and clinical teams, we expect to be using them for patients in the next two days.