FANTASTIC PPE GESTURES AID CRITICAL SWANSEA NPT CHILDREN’S SERVICES

A Llandarcy manufacturer and a Swansea comprehensive school have produced and donated critical personal protection equipment (PPE) to Action for Children’s key children’s services in the Neath Port Talbot (NPT) and Swansea area.

Millennium Lasers from Llandarcy provide free PPE equipment to the NHS in Swansea Bay and have now delivered 20 visors to Neath Port Talbot (NPT) Swansea Community Short Breaks project staff and carers to ensure their critical work can continue.

The project works closely with Swansea and NPT councils to support children and young people with disabilities to access community activities (POPS) and provides overnight stays with Family Link Carers in the area.

Caroline Lewis, practice manager at Neath Port Talbot (NPT) Swansea Community Short Breaks, said: ‘In these difficult times our workers are still out in the community striving to support families with children affected by disability. This fabulous donation enables our workers to provide the essential support to families in great need, while keeping both themselves and our extremely vulnerable young people safe.

Millennium Lasers have ensured that even during this time, we can keep supporting the children and young people who benefit from using our projects, and it is very much appreciated by all the staff and management at NPT Swansea Community Short Breaks.

Dr Paul Mason, Managing Director of Millennium Lasers, said: ‘I’ve been told of the great work Action for Children are doing with families with children who have disabilities and that PPE was difficult to access for staff and volunteers.

‘As we are currently providing, free of charge, over 36,000 visor parts for the Swansea Bay NHS Trust, we have the capacity and ability to produce additional visors for local volunteer groups, charities and suchlike. We thought Action for Children was a great fit and one which we wanted to support. It was our pleasure to provide these to them, free of charge.’

Morriston Comprehensive School’s technology department has also been hard at it producing PPE for the NHS and key local services in Swansea. The school manufactured and delivered a consignment of shield masks to the Ty Laura short breaks service. Action for Children works closely with Swansea Council to provide respite care for children and young people who have severe learning disabilities and complex needs.

Shelley Pearce, Ty Laura’s registered manager said: ‘This is a wonderful gesture from Morriston Comprehensive School. We have done everything we can to continue serving our families at this incredibly challenging time and this high-quality PPE ensures we can maintain the highest safety standards. Our staff and families are so grateful to the school for thinking about us and helping us continue providing the specialist short breaks service Swansea families need.’

Andy Banbury, from Morriston Comprehensive’s technology department, said: ‘We have been making the PPE Visors as part of an initiative which several schools under the City and County of Swansea umbrella are taking part in. Nathan Williams, myself and my wife Claire and Year 11 pupil Luke Jones have supplied the visors to nurses, care workers, doctor’s surgeries, pharmacies and anyone feeling vulnerable and in need. We quickly became very aware there was a severe lack of the visors, especially for those working in the specialist care homes for those with disabilities, caring for the elderly and respite homes.

‘Ty Laura approached us for visors through a family member school link at Morriston Comprehensive. In addition to making PPE visors, our Head of Dept Joanne Smith, Textiles teacher Zoe Stephens and Technology teacher Rachel Hatcher have been making scrubs bags for NHS workers in Swansea. Our aim is to keep making them so long as there is a need. We cannot express how much admiration and respect we have for these selfless front-line workers and unsung heroes of the care sector.’