Nissan Sunderland plant produces half a million healthcare aprons

Nissan's Sunderland factory has produced half a million protective aprons for front line healthcare workers, the company has announced.

A 57-strong team of staff volunteers at the plant have manufactured the aprons in just under three months. They have been supplied to more than 100 healthcare trusts and care homes across the North East region.

Nissan is now handing over the project reins to HMP Northumberland.

Alan Johnson, vice president of manufacturing said: “I’m extremely proud of the way the team at the plant answered the call to produce PPE for our front line workers.

“Producing more than half a million aprons in such a short period of time demonstrates the skill, ingenuity and dedication of our team at the plant.

“As a team we are delighted to hand over the apron manufacture to HMP Northumberland so they can continue the work that’s already been started.”

With both production lines now back up and running at the plant, the team have shared their expertise and donated the equipment to a group of staff and 15 residents at the prison, based in Acklington, Northumberland.

Once up and running the prison team hope to initially produce 40,000 aprons each week.

Nissan began producing aprons in April following a request from the Royal College of Nursing and Unite for UK manufacturers to help with the unprecedented demand for PPE.

A team of staff volunteers took just eight days to design and build a process onsite to manufacture the plastic aprons.

The project was carried out in parallel to the plant’s activity to help supply visors to the NHS.

As part of that, a team of volunteers have created a parts processing line to sort thousands of individual visor parts and pack them into sets of 125 for shipping direct to the NHS, with more than 370,000 units distributed.

Nissan www.nissan.co.uk