Arco Shortlisted for IHEEM Healthcare Supplier of the Year Award

Arco has been shortlisted for the prestigious IHEEM Healthcare Supplier of the Year Award, in recognition of its work supplying respiratory protection and fitting services to Scotland's NHS.

In August 2020, whilst health services were struggling to source Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and ensure all their workers were adequately protected, Arco stepped in to supply essential PPE and fitting services to Scotland's Health and Social Care. Between May 2021 - May 2022, Arco supplied 100 million surgical masks, 4 million visors, and 1 million FFP3 respirator masks to meet around 87% of Scotland's health and social care needs. This support was successfully implemented through 50 managed local distribution hubs, providing PPE to over 2,700 sites.

Clare Casciani, Health and Safety Advisor, NHS Lothian said:

"Without Arco's support, we would not have been able to achieve this at all. It's been a wonderful, incredibly valuable service, thank you."

Arco worked with hospital teams across Scotland to coordinate a face fit testing program, ensuring Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) wearers were kept safe with correctly fitting FFP3 respiratory masks. Ill-fitting or incorrectly sized PPE presents a significant risk to staff members, especially as users may not realise their protection is compromised, leading to behaviour that drastically increases exposure risk. Frontline staff were supported with over 3,000 days of Fit2Fit approved on-site testing, across day and night shifts. Arco also organised training for NHS Scotland staff members in running their own face fit testing. They provided bespoke fit testing training days and continued coaching and mentoring staff so they themselves could be trained to Fit2Fitstandards. Several NHS staff have since gone on to pass their Fit2Fit examination.

NHS Staff Feedback on Face Fit Training:

"On behalf of the team, I would like to express our appreciation for the valuable support we received from Arco supporting us prior to our quantitative Fit2Fit accreditation exam. We all benefited greatly from being able to examine and probe a variety of half-face and full-face masks, on more than one occasion. The team were also on hand to help answer any questions. I would highly recommend this support is available to other NHS staff."

Arco employed a five-step process to select products that met quality, reliability and ethical standards when supplying frontline workers. Counterfeit and non-compliant PPE was identified, and all product quality was reviewed, thanks to Arco's in-house and independently accredited Product Assurance Laboratory. Arco also partnered with Alpha Solway and Scotland's Health and Social Care to develop products manufactured in the UK. New packaging was also introduced for improved storage and face fit data collected by Arco contributed to research around new products, and a new mask was launched in 2021.

This highly successful support of Scotland's Health and Social Care and NHS has been recognised by Arco's shortlisting for the IHEEM Awards. The winner will be announced on 4th October at Healthcare Estates 2022. Arco has shared sincere thanks to all their hardworking colleagues who have ensured healthcare workers and patients felt protected and safe.