SUPPLY INFRASTRUCTURE
Breathing new life into the fight against COVID-19
Robert Lawton, Business Development director at Coventry-based Lawton Tubes, a fourth-generation family-owned business with a 100-year history which is reportedly the UK’s largest medical gas copper tube distributor, describes some of the company’s recent work supplying such tubing to Nightingale Hospitals, and the lengths its staff went to ensure that demand was promptly met, and that oxygen reached the patients that needed it.
Nobody could have predicted what 2020 had in store for us, with COVID-19 creating the largest global pandemic in living memory. The sudden onset of the virus in so many countries put massive pressure on national health systems in every corner of the world, and prompted many governments to explore new ways of treating huge volumes of patients outside of traditional hospitals. In England, seven Nightingale Hospitals were established to create additional capacity in areas that were under significant medical pressures, and these impressive facilities were devised and built in record time.
It quickly became apparent that the one thing that COVID-19 patients relied heavily on for their care was oxygen, and all these temporary ‘super hospitals’ needed to create a safe and secure supply to what would amount to thousands of beds. All of this was played out against a backdrop of urgent timescales and lead times that had never previously been achieved. People’s lives depended on the oxygen supply, and UK industry reacted.
The solution
Lawton Tubes’ reputation for supplying medical gas copper pipes saw it quickly approached by the Government, the NHS, and healthcare providers, to supply products that would safely transport oxygen to people who needed it most. The family-run engineering company, a copper pipe manufacturer, was open throughout every stage of the pandemic, and this meant that it was front and centre of supplying these vital copper pipes to the Nightingale Hospitals and dozens and dozens of other locations across the UK, including nursing homes, ‘pop-up’ clinics, and existing hospitals. With no visibility on volumes and forecasts, our entire manufacturing facility in Coventry had to pivot to focus on orders for the medical sector, delivering its core medical grade copper tube in sizes ranging from 12 mm up to 219 mm. Small diameters that would normally be
58 Health Estate Journal March 2021 A medical gas pipeline installation by Lawton Tubes.
used at the final point for the outlets by patients’ beds were replaced with much larger sizes more suitable for carrying vast amounts of oxygen – from plant rooms and offsite stores to theatres and wards.
108 mm copper tubing installed at he Nightingale Hospital at the NEC in Birmingham. A precise logistics operation was required, with vast oxygen tanks installed a safe distance away from the building, allowing for truckloads of oxygen to be brought in.
Hundreds of thousands of accessories and fittings In addition to the pipes, hundreds of thousands of accessories and fittings were manufactured and supplied, including medical grade copper endfeed fittings, brass Munsen rings/rubber-lined pipe supports, silver brazing rods, and gas identification tapes – a complete pipeline system all from stock. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a period like we faced in March. Usual lead times were cut in half even to same day deliveries, our stock make-up had to change beyond all recognition, and staff were asked to work flat out, at weekends, and during holidays. Thankfully, investment in technology and new equipment gave us the agility we needed, and our manufacturing processes meant we could move people around the factory to get the most throughput. While speed was of the essence, we also had to make sure that all of the copper pipe supplied conformed to exacting medical standards, was BSi kitemarked to EN13348, and was produced to the recognised NHS HTM 02-01 guidelines. Once production was underway, Lawton Tubes had to collaborate with numerous different project leads at the Nightingales to ensure that our manufacture fitted seamlessly into the
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