News: Nottingham College’s EMTEC Centre leads the way for the automotive industry donating PPE to local hospitals

The high grade PPE, originally designed to offer protection to heat, chemical contaminants and contact with certain metals and materials, is some of the best available, and has been delivered to hospitals local to the College in the last week. 

EMTEC delivers apprenticeship training for brands such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, KIA Hyundai and Tesla, plus body repair training for Bentley and Aston Martin and many more specialist training services for the automotive sector both at home and abroad. Its headquarters and main training centre is located at Ruddington Business Park. 

Ryan Jones is one of the College’s body repair specialists working with Aston Martin at the moment. An ex World Skills finalist, he’s a leader in his field and trains mechanics to work on Aston Martin vehicles. He has used his connections to ensure that NHS frontline workers now have access to some of the best high-grade PPE available. 

Ryan explains:

“I, like everybody else, was watching the news early on in this crisis, and seeing the bravery of our NHS frontline workers, caring for extremely sick people in our hospitals and in desperate need for protective clothing and equipment that can keep them safe. 

“I work with some pretty high grade PPE in the automotive sector. When we closed our doors to trainees a couple of weeks ago I knew that it would be sitting there, potentially for weeks or even months, and it could be going to much better use. 

“My colleague’s wife is a nurse and she made contact with the procurement team for Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. When she provided the spec for the equipment, the procurement team were astounded and explained that it was better than anything they could get. So we’ve since packed up over 100 specialist overalls and face masks and they were delivered to the hospitals last week.”

Jon Rawson is Head of Operations for EMTEC. He said: 

“It was Ryan’s curiosity and initiative that secured this important PPE for NHS workers. There isn’t an obvious link between automotive and healthcare PPE, but actually we share the same needs in terms of protecting our face, eyes, mouth, nose, skin and hands. We also rely heavily on single use clothing and equipment to prevent harmful contaminants from endangering our staff and trainees, so we knew this would transfer well into the healthcare sector. 

“We would encourage any automotive business, dealership or mechanic to review what they have and what they can afford to donate.” 

Since this initial donation the College has donated thousands of pairs of gloves and masks from other areas of its curriculum, including hair and beauty, engineering, catering and hospitality, construction, and science.