Care home staff have been enabled to wear their PPE more comfortably during the Covid-19 lockdown, thanks to the Beer-based company Peco.
The manufacturing business based on the same site as Pecorama has made and supplied hundreds of plastic clips for adapting face masks.
The clips have been given to the Check House and Thornfield care homes in Seaton, Silverleigh in Axminster and the Doveleigh group which runs Dove Court in Seaton, Doveridge in Colyton and Arcot House in Sidmouth.
Peco’s chairman Michael Pritchard said: “If you’re a regular user of a face mask with loops to go around your ears, if you’re wearing that for several hours a day it makes your ears very sore.
“This clip takes it away from the ears, you put it around the back of your head, and it’s held in place by friction, and it works very well.”
He said Peco designer David Malton made the clips, based on a design on the internet. The plastic is usually used for packaging and as a glazing material for making windows in model railway coaches.
He said Peco still have plenty of clips in stock and are offering them to other care homes free of charge.
Amy Burt, the general manager of the three Doveleigh Care homes, said she and her staff are ‘very appreciative’ of the donation.
She said while lockdown has been a difficult time, all three homes are free of the virus, and a lot of positive changes have come out of the situation.
New residents’ activities have been introduced, and they have been using Skype to talk to their relatives.
“Some families are having more contact than they did before Covid-19, because if they live far away, they can see their loved ones more regularly,” she said.
The homes have also started producing weekly newsletters so that families can read about what the residents and staff have been doing.
Staff are being given treats and ‘well-being bags’ to keep their morale up, and a mobile snack bar service has been introduced for residents.
Ms Burt said several of the changes introduced during lockdown will ‘absolutely’ remain in place because they have been so well received.
“We can really look at how we do things,” she said.
“We’re doing things we never thought about before.”
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