Unily employees mobilize to print safety visors for frontline healthcare workers

Vital masks for frontline hospital staff 

In challenging times, every act of kindness matters. In the UK, Unily staff have pulled together to print vital safety visors desperately needed by healthcare workers tackling COVID-19 on the frontline. 

Employees have volunteered to turn their homes into mini-manufacturing facilities, to help overcome a shortage of PPE masks for frontline medical staff.

24 employees are manning 3D printers to produce an estimated 700 masks per week. The visors are being delivered to local hospitals where frontline hospital staff are currently working without adequate protection.

In the first ten days since the initiative's inception, employees have contributed 180 masks to hospitals local to the British headquarters in Surrey. So far 80 visors have been delivered to Epsom Hospital, 65 to Royal Berkshire, and 35 to the Royal Surrey Maternity Unit, with a further 50 due to be delivered to Frimley Park Hospital later today.

Representatives from the hospitals have shared messages of thanks, sending in pictures of themselves and their colleagues wearing the visors.

The masks are delivered with a rainbow heart stuck to the front of every disinfected package, as a sign of thanks to the NHS workers putting their health at risk to care for those in need.

Mobilizing the troops

The initiative was instigated by our CEO, Will Saville, who after seeing a news story about 3D printers being used to produce vital face visors for nurses, decided to give it a go himself. It wasn’t long before a 3D printer had been ordered and, after a few hours of testing and tweaking, the first visor was rolling off the production line.

Now the concept had been proven, attentions turned to scaling up production. Using the company intranet to call for volunteers, Will reached out to employees to ask for a “Dunkirk-esque” effort. Employees responded enthusiastically, posting more than 150 comments and reactions on the story offering support and assistance.

Within days, 24 employees were manufacturing plastic casings for the visors, with a further 3 assembling and disinfecting the masks before packaging them up with a rainbow sticker. At the same other employees were working on getting the masks into the hands of the people who needed them most.  

Every little helps

Now fully operational, Unily’s amateur manufacturers are on track to contribute thousands of masks to NHS staff. While the scale of our efforts is relatively small in comparison to the scale of the challenge, we are proud to be doing our bit to support the local community and fight COVID-19.

Contact Unily's UK-based team to know more about this initiative or fill in our dedicated contact form to request face shields.