Safer and the NHS

Safer. Health and Safety Ltd is a Health and Safety consultancy and training organisation based in the South East of England. Throughout the country, there are 187 competent mask fitters who are registered on a system called fit2fit, two of which are employees of Safer.

As a fit2fit accredited company, we are equipped with the specific skillset needed to support the NHS throughout these unprecedented times which we have been facing over the past few months.

In February, the Safer team began to receive enquiries from the NHS trusts across the country regarding face fitting and training their staff. We were also training provider for South Western Ambulance Trust, providing them with face fit training to enable them to conduct face fit testing on their own staff. Throughout this time, we are very proud to know we helped to make staff from all aspects of the NHS Safer.

Enablement

Throughout the past Six months we took the approach of enablement. Here’s one example of why enablement was the correct approach; there are approximately 7000 staff members in East Sussex Hospitals Trust. Each member of staff needs to be individually face fitted, and every time a specific mask runs out of stock, the process needs to be repeated. On average every member of staff will need to be tested three times, therefore the Safer team would need to fit approximately 21,000 masks over the past few months. This would take our team approximately 500 days to complete!!

However, enablement means upskilling the NHS to conduct these tests themselves. We have been running courses five days a week. Our courses include training as well as support to the clinics to ensure all members of staff trained are comfortable to repeat the process. With eight new members of staff trained every day, they can then go on to face fit others allowing the process to be more accessible. This enablement will ensure our local trust is capable of sustaining itself long term as this pandemic continues.

So far, we have enabled the following organisations:

• Nightingale Hospital London (facilities staff were trained to conduct face fit for clinicians)
• East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
• South Western Ambulance trust
• Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
• East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
• Two federations of doctors’ surgeries in West Sussex spanning the majority of West Sussex
• Over 200 Private Dental Surgeries across the country from Hull to Manchester, Wales, To Cornwall and the whole of the South East
• Health Education as a preferred training organisation conducting face fit train the tester for more than 200 delegates.
• The professional cleaning company responsible for ensuring our doctors surgeries are deep cleaned after a corona virus cases.

Supplying Equipment

We have and will continue to supply masks to multiple NHS sites. At a time where companies could capitalise on the situation, although some price increases were inevitable due to airfreighted stocks, we kept our costs as low as we could. Due to our relationship with a major PPE manufacturer, we can ensure the NHS can continue to protect their staff. This safety equipment is priceless in its ability to not only protect the NHS staff, but also to allow them to continue to do their jobs and ultimately saving more lives. The Safer team have provided invaluable assistance to key workers; using their training to help protect them.

A member of the South Western Ambulance Service said they were impressed by our “friendly yet professional manner, availability and willingness to help at a competitive price.”