A PRODUCTIVE pair of Alton schools have combined to create more than 1,500 visors – and counting – for the NHS and care workers.

Sixth form college HSDC Alton and Eggar’s secondary school have put their D&T and engineering departments to good use producing the vital personal protection equipment (PPE) since the lockdown came into force.

At Eggar’s, D&T curriculum leader Neil Waite, and teachers Rob Bowen and Abby Quinn, set up a mini-production line as Eggar’s went into lockdown to make face shields – all to NHS specifications.

As the innovative project started, 21 units were made in the first two hours with the hope of increasing to 50 a day. All materials had been donated to the department.

In the end they managed to make 500-plus visors before their laser cutter finally died.

But luckily, production partners HSDC Alton have two laser cutters and have produced an additional 1,000 visors – with production of around 100 to 150 masks per day continuing after the Easter holidays.

The majority of the visors have gone to hospitals in Southampton, Basingstoke, Winchester and Alton, as well as GP surgeries across the area, health centres, care homes, the Winchester emergency dental hub, Macmillan nurses in Midhurst and funeral directors.

Di Owen, Eggar’s marketing manager, said: “It was a fantastic effort and really helped our local surgeries and hospitals who were yet to have received a government supply. The furthest we’ve supplied to are the sonography team at the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust!”

Demand for visors continues, and an additional project has started at HSDC Alton to make fabric headbands for key workers whose ears are sore from the elastic on their face masks. The headbands go over their ears, and the mask elastic goes around buttons sewn on to the headband.

Old t-shirt material can be used for the headbands but large buttons are more difficult to find, so the team have ingeniously been printing buttons from visor offcuts. So far more than 300 buttons have been produced.

Jon Myers, head of campus at Alton, said: “This has been a tremendous effort by Barbara and her team and seeing the visors in use really makes this a special achievement.

“It’s been great to hear from other staff at the campus as well who are involved in producing scrubs and headbands. I am so pleased HSDC Alton can play its part in supporting the NHS through these challenging times.”