Phillip studied an advanced five-year apprenticeship at the college alongside working at his current employer, Bespak. The company produces an distributes vital medicines and medical and personal protective equipment that is vital to the combatting the COVID-19 virus. He shares with us how his life and job has changed during lockdown.
"I chose to study at CWA because Bespak had built a good relationship with the college and were working collaboratively to deliver the apprenticeship program to a number of apprentices. The NVQ level 2 Performing Engineering Operations was an entry level course and focused on basic engineering skills such as marking out, hacksawing, filing, basic machining on a mill and lathe. I was really lucky during this year as I was working within the tool room at Bespak and so my work and the college course complemented each other well. An important part of the learning at the college was the delivery of it. It was delivered by knowledgeable and competent lecturers who had experience in industry and could relate the learning to real life situations. This helped me to understand how to apply the learning which is really important in engineering.
After working at Palm Paper and Foster Refrigerator as a Process Engineer and Manufacturing Engineer respectively, I returned to Bespak in 2012 as the company was embarking on lots of new and interesting projects and I was contacted by Bespak as they needed resources to be able to carry out this work and I moved back to Bespak as a Manufacturing Engineer.
Bespak forms part of the critical Health and Social Care sector in the UK as a producer and distributer of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. As such, the company is absolutely vital to the world’s efforts at combatting the COVID-19 virus as a leading manufacturer and supplier of critical respiratory products. Patients with respiratory disease are at higher risk if they contract the virus bad outcome, so continuing to take their medication as prescribed is an essential part of managing that risk. For the most critically ill patients, many require respiratory support and ventilation. Bespak are the world’s largest supplier of the check valve used for endotracheal tubes deigned for this purpose. There are in excess of 1.5 million people who have been asked to shield themselves from coronavirus because of underlying health conditions, many of which rely on their inhaler on a daily basis. It is important that Bespak maintains supply of these products to their customers.
My day at work consists of reviewing the previous day’s performance and any issues seen over night. This is followed by a daily product stream meeting which is carried out using LoopUp when others that are working from home call in to join the meeting. In this meeting we discuss health and safety, quality and output against requirements. We discuss items in that order as that is the order of priorities within the business. We have to ensure that everything we produce is of the highest quality and the manufacture of the product is carried out in a controlled and documented way. Due to the fact that I am considered a key worker my family and I minimise our contact with anybody else in order to protect ourselves.
Within the area I work there has always been a very strong teamwork ethic which has grown stronger during this crisis. Any work that has previously been planned that includes interaction with customers or suppliers has been postponed in order to protect them and Bespak employees.
As a family we are appreciating the outdoors more as we only get to go out once a day to exercise. We really look forward to being able to go outside even if it is for a short time in controlled conditions. It is something we hope to keep doing when we are through this crisis.
We are all hopeful that if we all abide by government advice we will come out of this safe and well and will be able to see our family and friends sooner. We are all trying to remember how important our role is in supplying our customers with products that could potentially save lives,"
