Medicom UK managing director Hugues Bourgeois shows Dame Andrea Leadsom MP around the Medicom factory
South Northamptonshire MP Dame Andrea Leadsom is to press ministers about the government’s plans to ensure that the UK is no longer overreliant on cheap imported personal protective equipment.
The Conservative MP was speaking on a visit to the Medicom factory in her constituency, which produces millions of medical masks for the NHS.
She said: “This is a highly impressive facility, which is playing a vital role in ensuring that the UK has what we need to protect our health workers.
“It is important that the UK is not dependent on imported PPE, which is not necessarily of the same quality and whose transport has a major environmental impact. The security of the supply chain is essential.”
Medicom, a world-leading manufacturer of high-quality PPE, has created around 250 new jobs at its newly opened factory in Liliput Road, Northampton. The facility has been developed by the global Canada-based group following an agreement with the UK government to provide more than half a billion masks for the NHS.
A major factor in the deal has been helping to ensure supplies at a time of unprecedented demand during the Covid-19 pandemi. The Northampton factory is already producing more than 1.5 million face masks a day under Medicom’s Kolmi brand.
Dame Andrea said: “The creation of new local jobs is always welcome. On a wider level, this major investment by a multi-national company is an example of the global opportunities the UK can pursue after leaving the EU.”
The governments of Canada, France, Singapore and Hong Kong have also chosen Medicom as a key supplier. The company has ten manufacturing sites around the world but the plant in Northampton is the first in the UK.
Dame Andrea was given a tour of the factory by Medicom’s UK managing director Hugues Bourgeois. “We have made this big commitment because we believe in the NHS and strengthening PPE production in the UK,” he said. “We are very grateful to Mrs Leadsom for her support.”
