52
APRIL 2021
LIGHTING JOURNAL
Lighting and Covid-19
‘PERSO’ AND PERSEVERENCE
INDO Lighting’s innovative ‘PeRSo’ hood respirator, developed for NHS workers at the height of the pandemic last year, has now gained wider regulatory approval, allowing it to be used in NHS trusts around the country and even internationally By Nic Paton
W
ith the UK gradually unlocking and the Covid-19 vaccine rollout continuing apace, we can but hope that we’re now entering the endgame of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, even if Covid-19 moves from being a public health crisis to something more manageable, an endemic disease a bit like measles or flu that we simply have to live with (and regularly vaccinate against), the NHS will still need to be caring for people with the virus. As we’ve seen throughout the past year, the lighting industry has been using its high-precision manufacturing skills and supply chain expertise to play its part in supporting NHS workers. Regular readers of Lighting Journal may recall that last summer we spoke to Rebecca Hatch, ILP VP Infrastructure and managing director of Southampton-based INDO Lighting about the story behind its development of an innovative hood-based respirator device for NHS frontline staff (‘Quality care commission’, June 2020, vol 85 no 6). At the time, the ‘PeRSo’ device, which had been developed with the University of Southampton, and clinicians at University Hospital Southampton had been approved for local use in a number of Hampshire and south coast trusts.
REGULATORY APPROVAL
Gaining wider regulatory approval has proved a slow process but, as Tom Baynham, INDO chair, recently updated Lighting www.theilp.org.uk
Journal, the two variants of the device, the PeRSo 1 and PeRSo 3, have now been approved for wider use across the NHS. As he explains: ‘The PeRSo 1 is an entrylevel, low-cost, high-volume product that we are manufacturing in its entirety in Southampton using our UK supply chains. The PeRSo 3, by comparison, was a quick-tomarket redesign of a hood, filter and turbo unit that were already in use and which we simply adapted at speed, for use during the first wave of the Covid pandemic last year.’ The PeRSo 3 quickly received Health and Safety Executive approval for use in healthcare as well as the dental sector, and was the device highlighted in our original article last summer. The more complex iteration, the PeRSo 1, has now also received its CE certification. Tom takes up the story. ‘The PeRSo 1 is currently (as of March) finishing its fulltype approval; so BSI is now signing it off. We are starting to have conversations with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and various other bodies around the UK to roll it out for use. ‘We’re also doing a project with Southampton University to upgrade the hood system to make it a medical device as well. That means it would protect not just the wearer from those around them, but those around them if the wearer was infected.’ Another advantage of the device is the fact that it makes communication that much easier with patients who rely on lip reading, he adds.
Given that, of course, the pandemic is a global health crisis, INDO has also been looking at the use of the devices within international markets, including working with some hospitals in Africa as well as other countries.
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
Ultimately, this success story (so far) shows how lighting – lighting professionals, lighting manufacturers and ILP members across the board – have successfully risen to the challenge of the pandemic. As Tom explains: ‘At INDO, as well as designing and manufacturing fixtures, one of our core areas of expertise is in electronic engineering; we knew we had the skillset that could help – and that was essentially what was needed the most in this project. ‘We needed to design something that could detect low flow rates. You have air being filtered and delivered in through the hood system but, in order to comply with the standards, if the hose gets trapped, cut or damaged, the system needs to be able to detect that that has happened. The electronics therefore needed to be able to detect blockages or low flow rates; and all that had to be developed from scratch. ‘So, it was very much about using our electrical expertise and then, from there, knowing where to go to get the various elements designed, manufactured and incorporated into the product. But it has been a hugely worthwhile and rewarding project to be involved in,’ says Tom.
