An East Anglian firm making PPE for the NHS will have to stop production when the funds they have raised run out despite being registered as an NHS supplier.

StealthMounts, based in Rivenhall, Essex, is producing 3,000 face shields a day with money raised from a GoFundMe appeal.

A GoFundMe page they set up at the end of March has raised over £21,500 to cover their set up costs and the cost of raw materials but they fear they will have to stop production when the money runs out.

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Mark Macdonald, one of the company’s three founders, said: “We’ve been making them off our own backs. We funded most of them with a GoFundMe. It’s done very well but now we’re making 3,000 face shields a day and we’re going to run out of money to pay for the materials.

“The problem is that we’re registered on the NHS supply chain. We’re registered on the government system. They have acknowledged our existence but that’s it.

“It’s been two or three weeks, and we’ve got off our backsides and turned over our machinery to doing this.

“We’ve stopped making our own products to make products for the NHS because it’s the right thing to do.

“When then GoFundMe money runs out we will have to turn our machine off. It would be very upsetting knowing that we could be making them, but not being able to.”

The company, which usually produces holders for power tool batteries, adapted its injection moulding machinery to produce face shields and began producing them on Good Friday.

Since then they have made and distributed over 17,000, producing them all day and all night.

Mr Macdonald said: “The masks have gone everywhere. All over the country. From Southport to Portsmouth, Addenbrookes and Great Ormond Street.

“We’ve supplied them to nurses, doctors, ICU units, dentists, optometrists, GPs, social workers, mental health nurses. The list is huge.

“The fact is the government could have hundreds of companies like us making the necessary equipment. They could just commandeer our equipment but there’s just no joined up thinking at all.

“It’s now ridiculous that the government is not doing something better.”

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Since then they have made and distributed over 17,000, producing them all day and all night.

Mr Macdonald said: “The masks have gone everywhere. All over the country. From Southport to Portsmouth, Addenbrookes and Great Ormond Street.

“We’ve supplied them to nurses, doctors, ICU units. Dentists, optometrists, GPs, social workers, mental health nurses. The list is huge.

“The fact is the government could have hundreds of companies like us making the necessary equipment. They could just commandeer our equipment but there’s just no joined up thinking at all.

“It’s now ridiculous that the government is not doing something better.”

More details of the GoFundMe can be found here.

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