26th Mar '20

Supporting The NHS Supply Chain

Simon Cartwright, CEL Group Sales Director – Call 07917 821723

CEL Group supports the NHS supply chain as a tier two and three supplier to healthcare and medical equipment OEMs.

The Covid-19 crisis has made demand for medical supplies grow exponentially. Our supply chains are having to work much faster to address product shortages; from ventilators to hospital beds, and from PPE to hospital bins. Our focus is twofold. Firstly, responding quickly to increased call-offs of customer stock in the UK. And, importantly, fast-tracking future orders, and enquiries, for supply of sheet metal and metal fabrication components or fully assembled, medical products.

A key supply chain partner

As a key supply chain partner to healthcare and medical equipment OEMs, we are focused on supporting the NHS and playing a small part in helping all our medical and support staff on the front-line.

Right now, we are in the process of shipping 61 pallets of medical equipment direct into the NHS supply chain. In the short/medium term, urgent orders to boost stock levels are unlikely to even reach our warehouse. For customers that have previously kept future stock with us, we are now looking to move to delivering directly from the UK port to customers’ sites. Or straight into NHS warehouses. Our logistics team – working safely at home – is helping customers simplify and accelerate supply during this period of high demand.

Please be reassured that our warehouse staff are all working safely too, and at a social distance. Plus, all our customer sites have strict safety protocols in place, when receiving goods. We will continue to adjust our way of working in line with Government guidelines.

Manufacture of metal-based healthcare products

While ensuring we supply as much stock as possible right now, it’s important to speed up future planning too. Sadly, we now know the impact of coronavirus on our healthcare services – as well as on our businesses – is going to run for, potentially, another 12 months. That is why our sales and engineering teams are focusing now on prioritising urgent orders for medical products, as well as fast-tracking enquiries for manufacturing healthcare equipment.

We are already experienced manufacturers of medical products, such as sheet metal bins, drip trays, as well as metal fabrication for screens, trolleys, hospital beds, hoists etc. At our accredited ISO 9001:2015 factory in Ningbo, we run production lines dedicated to manufacturing health and care equipment, for both hospitals and care homes. Which is one of the reasons why ISO 13485:2016 approval is underway..

We can provide whatever is needed from component manufacture, to sub-assembled products, as well as complete box-builds. Our promise has always been to make it easier for OEMs to benefit from sub-contract manufacturing in China. Today, it is more important than ever, with our factories in China now fully operational and available to aid UK manufacturers who need to get products urgently to the NHS.