Arcadis leads industry campaign to collect one million PPE items for NHS

Arcadis has coordinated an industry-wide campaign to collect one million items of PPE for NHS staff urgently needed during the covid-19 pandemic.

Initially tasked by NHS London with finding 250,000 PPE items over four days, Arcadis worked with over 40 organisations across industry to collect the equipment.

Laing O’Rourke, Mace, Network Rail, CBRE and Kelly’s all donated substantial amounts of equipment.

Edel Christie, managing director for building at Arcadis, said: “There has been an exceptional response from across the industry which we are proud to be part of.

“We’re now in the process of identifying potential new industrial supply chains capable of supplying thousands more items of PPE for our NHS heroes.”

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Together, the organisations quadrupled NHS London’s request, locating over a million items ready for collection or drop off including 150,000 gowns/coveralls, 650,000 masks and 420,000 gloves.

John O’Connor, group commercial director at Laing O’Rourke, said his firm had sourced more than 20,000 items of personal protective equipment from the stores on its sites.

A large amount of the PPE went to North London hospitals.

And Mark Reynolds, Mace chief executive, said the PPE collection was a vital contribution from the sector.

He said: “[It’s] a clear demonstration of what we can do when we all work together.

“Construction has a key role to play in our response to this crisis, from sharing equipment to delivering much-needed emergency new healthcare facilities across the UK.”