Ventilators

(asked on 20th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what procedures his Department is using with (a) skilled academics and (b) engineers to select innovative ventilator designs during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 11th May 2020

The ventilator challenge work is being undertaken and managed by the Cabinet Office.

The Prime Minister’s call to manufacturers on 16 March had an overwhelming response, with over 5,000 United Kingdom and international businesses offering to help provide services, including designing and building new devices, manufacturing components or transporting them to National Health Service hospitals.

Following this, the Government has partnered a number of the UK’s leading technology and engineering firms with smaller manufacturers to rapidly build existing, modified or newly designed ventilators at speed, with seven priority projects underway.

Officials are currently working with expert clinicians and health regulators to test all new machine designs, as patient safety is of paramount importance. Any new orders are all dependent on machines passing regulatory tests, but the Government, manufacturers and regulators are working at pace to drive this work forward.

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