Friday 3 April, 2020

The Royal Mint has begun mass manufacturing medical visors exclusively for the NHS to address the immediate shortfall in PPE.

The Royal Mint is now producing 5,000 medical visors per day and will initially prioritise supplying NHS Wales who supported the development and approval of the medical visors.

The Royal Mint, usually known for making coins, bullion and gifts, has a state of the art manufacturing facility in Llantrisant. Engineers at the site were keen to support NHS workers, and began searching for medical equipment which could be easily produced on site.

The medical visors are fully BSI approved, and the design was developed and refined by the engineering team at The Royal Mint in just 48 hours. To date, over 12,000 medical visors are already in use at hospitals across Wales.

In addition, The Royal Mint has been supplying the local NHS with other essential PPE equipment from its stores, and offering Project Management support. 

Leighton John, Director of Operations for The Royal Mint said: “My sister works for the NHS and it really focuses your mind on the challenges they are facing, and the opportunity we have to support them.

“Our first priority is always the wellbeing of our staff, and we have transformed our visitor attraction, The Royal Mint Experience, into an emergency production line for medical visors.  The site ensures that employees are safely distanced, and allows us to keep manufacturing jobs open whilst our normal production is scaled back.

“We are extremely proud that over 12,000 medical visors are already in use at hospitals across Wales.”

Dr Sharon Hopkins, CEO of Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB, said: “We are incredibly grateful to The Royal Mint for this work. This equipment will be vitally important for our frontline staff to protect themselves and others as they work to respond to the COVID19 pandemic. It is also an excellent example of teams working collaboratively to provide safer environments for our staff and patients.

“The generosity of organisations such as The Royal Mint as well as our communities has been humbling and I would like to thank everyone for their continued support for our staff and the NHS.”

The Royal Mint has worked with its key suppliers – including Brammer, TJ Morgan and Technical Foam Services– to source the components needed to make the visors.