The unique Community Equipment Service partnership in Gwent, operated by Medequip together with Cefndy Healthcare, was approached by the Gwent-Wide Integrated Community Equipment Service (GWICES) commissioning team to see if the partnership could support in the storage and distribution of vital PPE for the care sector in South Wales.
After an assessment visit from the British Army, who were assisting with setting up a reliable distribution service, the Cefndy-Medequip depot in Newport was contracted by GWICES to receive the PPE deliveries.
Sourced by the Welsh Government Supply Network, these were to be stored and distributed to five local hubs in Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. From there it is supplied directly to social care service providers.
From a start over the Easter weekend, the Cefndy-Medequip partnership has now processed in excess of 200 pallets of PPE – quite literally millions of individual items. These have been sourced from overseas as well as in the UK, one of the latest high-profile deliveries being face visors supplied by the Royal Mint! Onward distribution of the PPE takes place daily to ensure the five supply hubs are stocked appropriately for demand.
Darren Morrish, Medequip Contract Manager at Newport commented; We are delighted and very proud to be part of the vital PPE supply chain in Gwent. We have added this service to our normal operations seamlessly, through the hard work, willing efforts and terrific engagement of the whole Cefndy-Medequip team.
Judith Addis, Cefndy Operations Manager at Newport seconds the comments made by Darren Morrish. Our storemen, supervisors, technicians and engineers have been really keen to help. We are receiving large deliveries that need to be offloaded, counted, split and delivered the same day. We are proud of the team for their willingness and enthusiasm to help front line workers
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Cefndy-Medequip is a joint service provided by Cefndy Healthcare and Medequip Assistive Technology Ltd.