VentilatorChallengeUK's first ventilator given official go-ahead

The first hospital ventilator specifically designed for coronavirus patients has been given the green light by regulators and the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium will make an initial 5000 machines for the NHS at a facility in North Wales.

The newly approved ventilator is based on a ventilator made by the Oxfordshire firm Penlon and which is already used in hospital wards and in operating theatres.

Siemens UK and Siemens Healthineers joined forces with a group of significant UK industrial and engineering businesses from the aerospace, automotive and medical sectors to produce medical ventilators for the UK’s National Health Service.

Under the leadership of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the group worked quickly to find a solution to accelerate the production of medical ventilators which, as we all know, are urgently needed to treat coronavirus.

The groups were working to a high-level specification for a Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System (RMVS) developed by clinicians and the regulator. The group had quickly identified several options based on existing technologies, which could be assembled from materials and parts in current production and made readily available in the UK supply chain.

The group was confident from the start that it could play a key role in delivering the medical ventilators to the required specifications and within the timescales set down by the UK Government, to respond to this ever-growing significant health emergency.