New ventilator order for the NHS

Dyson's new CoVent ventilator system. Image courtesy of Dyson.

Ventilators are devices that are part of intensive care unit beds. They push air in and out of a persons' lungs when they are unable to breathe for themselves. With Covid-19 attacking airways and lungs, they are a vital part of the battle to keep critically ill patients alive long enough to recover. When the UK government is warning about swamping the NHS, a large part of this is running out of ventilators.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK had around 8000 ventilators. That is 6.6 per 100,000 people. If you have tried the simulator on this web page, this is the number used to asses if the virus has overwhelmed the health service. The reason why the UK changed it's strategy from a single moderate social distancing effort, to multiple lockdowns over the next 12-18 months is to avoid overwhelming ventilator capacity.

New ventilator order

The government has just placed a new order for 10,000 ventilators with technology and engineering company, Dyson. Dyson has used its knowledge of air movement, batteries, motors and electronics and its expertise in product design and supply chains to design and build its new ventilator in a matter of weeks. It is repurposing a site, earmarked for electric car manufacture, to build the units.

The 10,000 new ventilators will more than double the UK capacity, giving us around 15 per 100,000 people. This will mean that the pandemic will less frequently saturate the NHS capacity and should mean fewer deaths and fewer more widely spaced lockdowns.

Sir James Dyson, the company's founder, has promised to donate, 5000 ventilators to the Covid-19 effort, including 1000 to the UK. A spokesman from the company said "Together we have been working around the clock. We are conducting a full, regulated medical device development, including testing in humans and we are scaling up for volume." Health secretary, Matt Hancock, says that the new ventilators, could be in hospitals within a matter of days.

While the NHS has been waiting for the Dyson offerings to be developed, the government has been purchasing around 8000 ventilators from existing UK suppliers and manufacturers, such as Inspiration Healthcare. While these smaller companies have existing tried and tested designs, they are not individually able to produce at the scales required. Another consortium, led by Airbus, is taking some of these existing designs and setting up new production facilities. The UK government is expected to place orders with this consortium as well. The aim is to have at least 30,000 ventilators to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, that's around 25 per 100,000 people.