Tag: ventilators

UK sends further life-saving support to India

  • The UK will send 1,000 more ventilators for use in India’s hospitals
  • The Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Adviser and NHS staff have given help and advice to their Indian counterparts
  • Fresh assistance follows medical relief sent by the Government last week and a surge in support from the British people to India
  • On Tuesday the Prime Minister will hold a virtual meeting with Indian Prime Minister Modi to discuss deepening cooperation between the UK and India

India’s fight against a surge in coronavirus cases will be reinforced by new UK Government support announced by the Prime Minister today. 1,000 ventilators will be sent from the UK’s surplus supply to Indian hospitals to help the most severe Covid cases.

This is in addition to 200 ventilators, 495 oxygen concentrators and 3 oxygen generation units the UK announced we were sending to India last week.

Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance have also spoken to their Indian counterparts to provide advice, insight and expertise to the Indian healthcare system as it deals with the world’s worse surge in Covid levels.

NHS England is also establishing a clinical advisory group led by Chief People Officer Prerana Issar to support India’s Covid response. The group will work with Indian institutions such as the All India Institute of Medical Services to share experience on managing Covid outbreaks.

The group will include researchers in public and global health, alongside nursing and other health professionals who have experience of the Indian healthcare system.

In a powerful demonstration of what Indian Prime Minister Modi has called the ‘living bridge’ between our countries, over the last week British people have come to the support of India in huge numbers. Businesses, civil society and the wider public have responded to appeals for help and launched funding drives.

This includes the British Asian Trust’s ‘Oxygen for India’ emergency appeal, which is raising funds for oxygen concentrators to be rapidly deployed to Indian hospitals. The BAT appeal, which has been personally backed by the Prince of Wales, has raised more than £1.5m in the last week.

Virgin Atlantic also flew 200 boxes of oxygen concentrators to Delhi on Saturday, after partnering with Khalsa Aid. Further cargo space will be given free of charge on 6 flights to India in the next week, in association with The Red Cross.

India has also provided support to the UK throughout the coronavirus pandemic. As the ‘pharmacy of the world’ the country has kept its borders open to supply the UK with vital medicine and PPE – exporting over 11 million face masks and 3 million packets of paracetamol over the course of 2020.

On Tuesday the Prime Minister will hold a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Modi to agree a huge range of commitments to deepen cooperation between the UK and India, including on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “The terrible images we have seen in India in recent weeks are all the more powerful because of the close and enduring connection between the people of the UK and India.

“I am deeply moved by the surge of support the British people have provided to the people of India and am pleased the UK Government has been able to play our part in providing life-saving assistance.

“The UK will always be there for India in its time of need.”

The world is safer and stronger because of work between the UK and India. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, for example, was developed in the UK, is currently being produced in the millions by India’s Serum Institute and will be distributed to the world at cost through COVAX.

It is those shared values of openness and the pursuit of knowledge and scientific advancement for the betterment of our societies that lie at the heart of the relationship between the UK and India. During his call with Prime Minister Modi the Prime Minister will emphasise the importance of working with India to promote our shared values.

India is the largest democracy in the world, a fellow Commonwealth country and in June Prime Minister Modi will travel to the UK to attend the G7 Summit as a guest – one of four world leaders invited to join the Summit of leading democracies.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “This support will help urgently meet some of India’s acute needs, particularly oxygen for patients. We are determined to help our Indian friends in their hour of need.

“We need to all work together to defeat Covid-19. No one is safe until we are all safe.”

Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock said: “As a close friend of India, we have all felt the harrowing scenes and are determined to do all we can. Only a few months ago we felt the pressure of the pandemic here in the UK. This virus attacks all of us and in the battle against coronavirus, we’re all on the same side.

“This additional support will provide more capacity and expertise to help save lives and support India’s healthcare system. We will continue to work closely with the Indian government during this immensely challenging time.”

Health workers do-it-themselves to tackle ventilator shortages

The First Minister has thanked clinical physics teams across Scotland in Parliament for their efforts on increasing ventilator capacity by repurposing equipment.

NHS staff have helped boost the stock of ventilators, crucial for the care of those suffering from coronavirus (COVID-19), by repurposing more than 200 anaesthetic machines.

These machines, normally used in operating theatres outwith intensive care units (ICU), will supplement the stock of specialised ICU ventilators.

NHS boards will deploy them as an interim measure with staff currently being retrained to use them in this way.

The use of repurposed machines increases ICU bed availability to more than 500. More ventilators for the NHS in Scotland have been ordered from a range of manufacturers and these will arrive in the coming weeks.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “Expert NHS clinicians, medical physicists and technicians have worked tirelessly, particularly over the last few days, to increase the ventilation capacity in our NHS by repurposing anaesthetic machines in response to COVID-19.

“Their remarkable work means our NHS has not just doubled ICU capacity, but has tripled it, ahead of the arrival of the additional ventilators we have ordered.

“We are now working to quadruple ICU capacity for COVID-19 patients to beyond 700 ICU beds, as soon as that can be achieved.

“These measures are part of our concerted and sustained response to an unprecedented health emergency. I am deeply grateful to our NHS staff for their ongoing commitment, expertise and bravery during this outbreak.”

Consultant Intensive Care Anaesthetist and Scottish Critical Care Clinical Lead Dr Rory Mackenzie said: “Over the last month ICU clinicians across Scotland have been fully committed to delivering detailed plans to increase the number of ventilator beds to meet the anticipated demand due to COVID-19.

“These plans include expanding into new spaces not normally used for critical care and repurposing anaesthetic machine ventilators, normally used in the operating theatre environment, to supplement specialised ICU ventilators.

“Most importantly, staff with previous ICU experience and others released from elective care programmes have gone through additional training.

“This is to ensure they can provide essential support and assistance to core critical care staff in the delivery of invasive ventilation, within these significantly enlarged units, to the sickest patients for whom this treatment provides a realistic prospect of survival.”

Scottish Government Senior Medical Advisor and Consultant Intensive Care Anaesthetist Dr John Colvin said: “From working collaboratively with clinical and technical staff across NHS Scotland, we are now confident that we are able to provide more than three times the normal number of ICU beds, and are on course to quadruple Intensive Care Capacity.

“A key advantage is that the extra medical and nursing staff from anaesthetics who will be contributing to the ICU escalation care will be familiar and confident with this equipment. ”

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s clinical physics team have converted 100 anaesthetic machines to ventilators. 

The First Minister thanked clinical physics teams across Scotland in Parliament today for their efforts on increasing ventilator capacity by repurposing equipment.

This is part of the board’s overall mobilisation plan to quadruple critical care capacity to cope with COVID-19, as requested by the Scottish Government.

Patients with coronavirus often have difficulty breathing and ventilators are used in hospital to help with this.

A team of 12 technicians in the past few days converted the medical equipment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Royal Alexandra Hospital.

They were able to do this by changing the machines’ inner tubing to use air instead of oxygen to operate the ventilator. The machines were then tested, calibrated and are now approved for use to treat patients with coronavirus.

The clinical physics team at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde maintain the medical equipment in our hospitals.

This is part of NHS Greater Glasgow’s overall response to COVID-19 as the board aims to protect its patients, staff and wider public.

Ted Mullen, Head of Medical Equipment Management, part of the wider Clinical Physics Team, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (above), said: Our team of experts did an incredible job this past weekend to convert our anaesthetic machines to much-needed ventilators.

“I want to thank them for their tireless work on this. These ventilators will help our frontline staff treat patients with coronavirus.”