Tata Steel donate personal protective equipment to NHS staff in Swansea

Tata Steel have donated personal protective equipment (PPE) to Swansea Bay NHS staff treating coronavirus patients.

The Port Talbot based steel plant sourced masks, gloves, aprons and shoe covers from suppliers around the UK.

All the equipment has passed the necessary requirements and regulations that any PPE must do before staff are able to use it.

This comes after frontline health and social care workers expressed concerns over the availability of PPE.

The Welsh Government said there is enough of the equipment to go around and they have made some available from the pandemic stockpile. On Friday 27 March, they also announced a review into the official guidance on when PPE should be used.

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Tata Steel workers delivered the van of PPE to Swansea Bay University Health Board Head Quarters.

Richard Williams, Stores Manager for Tata at Port Talbot, said: “We have made a very special delivery on behalf of the company to a destination, a few weeks ago, I could never have imagined we would be delivering to.”

“Over the course of the last few days we’ve been hunting the country high and low so we could supply the frontline.

“It is something we all really wanted to do to try and help.”

Swansea Bay’s Assistant Director of Health and Safety, Mark Parsons, thanked the company for their donation.

Whilst the Port Talbot plant is still in operation, Tata Steel CEO Henrik Adam announced on Saturday 28 March that "the level of co-production will be reduced" due to a drop in demand for steel.

More than 400,000 surgical masks destined for NHS staff are being brought to north Wales through Airbus. The cargo is due to arrive on Friday.

The Royal Mint have also answered the call for more PPE and now manufacture the potentially life-saving gear at their base in Llantrisant.

The visors made there will go to hospitals in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board area, with the first batch already in use at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.

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