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Vacuums to ventilators

Nick Grey, founder of manufacturer, Gtech, can fill a book with stories about his life, but none of them compare to the most pivotal decision he’s ever had to make during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Vacuums to ventilators

Nick Grey, founder of manufacturer, Gtech, can fill a book with stories about his life, but none of them compare to the most pivotal decision he’s ever had to make during the Coronavirus pandemic.

After being woken in the early hours one Sunday morning in March, the first thing that sprang to the entrepreneur’s mind was who the heck could be calling at that hour. When he picked up the receiver though, the voice on the other end of the line was no other than the Government’s chief commercial officer, Gareth Rhys Williams.

The Government needed Nick’s help in designing a ventilator that could be mass produced to help patients with Coronavirus.

“My first thought was ‘this is a scam’, but the minister was calm and suggested I Google his Government profile, check the number and call him back.”

It was at this point the inventor of the cordless cleaner had to make the single most important decision that he’s made in his life. He had to decide if his company would be able to help the Government make 30,000 NHS ventilators in as little as two weeks to cope with skyrocketing infections on the frontline.

“The Government official told me there was an urgent need for the life-saving devices, but I needed to see the specification before I could make a decision. When he sent it to me, I knew it could be done.”

The founder initially set up Gtech from the confines of his Worcester garage two decades ago with savings having left his job at vacuum cleaner brand VAX. There he started to design and develop the world’s first cordless cleaner to tackle the whole house, the SW01 cordless floor sweeper in 2002, as well as other garden power tools. Since then the father-of-four has been driven to design and manufacture brilliant floorcare products, an eBike, garden range and even a massage bed by finding innovative solutions and simplifying operations. His big break came quickly and he hasn’t looked back.

Learning from experience the Gtech owner moved from vacuums to ventilators overnight and began working on the project on Sunday morning. After spending time learning how the ventilators worked, he fathomed he could make a real difference so called in his R&D engineering team for support. They were able to buy a second-hand mechanical ventilator from Ebay which was collected first thing Monday morning. Examining it showed the team how they would need to connect to the hospital oxygen system and also the patient.

“The initial description of ventilator had effectively two specifications: a simple air moving device to deliver an oxygen-rich 450ml ‘breath’ of air to the patient 12 times a minute and help push air into patients’ lungs when they can’t breathe for themselves and a more complex electronic ventilator.”

“There were quite a lot of challenges because oxygen is a very reactive gas, which rules out many motors and electrical devices. Normal air operated cylinders can only run on air, not pure oxygen so they could not be used.”

“The breakthrough was to repurpose an everyday syringe into an oxygen-powered ram. A valve directed oxygen into the syringe which then squeezed a self-inflating air container delivering 400ml of air directly into a patient’s lungs. A second syringe then acted as a timer and once the ‘breath’ had been delivered, it would then reset the ram for the next cycle.”

“I knew that we had to be quick as air handling is something the team were experienced in and they got started on the basic specification immediately. I also knew that Gtech could make the simple ones in high volume at short notice, so I let the Cabinet minister know that and started to build a prototype.”

As hospitals up and down the country were preparing for a flood of desperately ill patients unable to breathe on their own, I felt “compelled” to respond to the call for help.

Nick Grey

Gtech

“We designed the ventilator entirely from parts that can readily be made from stock materials or bought off-the-shelf. This meant that if the Government approved and wanted Gtech ventilators they could be made by almost any engineering or manufacturing business.”
By the end of Tuesday Nick and the team had been working 24/7 on their model and by Thursday it was operating efficiently and meeting the basic specification – running only off the hospital oxygen supply.”

“We discovered that Gtech could produce around 100 per day within a week or two providing we found steel fabrication and CNC machining companies to help us make some of the parts.”

“On the Friday I provided a video of the ventilator to a Government panel of ministers, clinicians and senior NHS people who said it was fantastic and asked me to take it to the next stage and prepare to manufacture.”

A senior consultant from Worcester Royal Hospital then visited Gtech on Saturday to evaluate the ventilator.
“He asked if we could provide 200 ventilators to the hospital within a week and we went through how the ventilator could be calibrated and set up in a hospital environment. He then said he would provide an anaesthetist to support our development of the ventilator.”

By Monday though Nick could tell that something was different. Less than a week after being told by the Government to produce the much-needed ventilators, he was advised not to push forward into the production stages.

The Government official started to understand that as more patients were being treated and the NHS learned more about Covid-19, a different approach was needed.

“Instead of mechanical ventilation, patients now needed a steady oxygen rich supply to support their own breathing.”

“The Government fortunately didn’t need the 30,000 ventilators demand being met by getting existing manufacturers to speed up production.”

“He thanked me for the team’s efforts and we were all very proud that we were ready to respond to the nation’s needs and start production if required too.”

“As we had built 10 ventilators, these were sent out to different countries who had asked for them. We then went back to our day jobs and a very busy spring cleaning and garden season for Gtech.”

“Although the Government offered to pay for our development costs, we never made a claim. It was a national crisis after all and a pleasure to try and help out when our country needed us.”

Gtech also had the support of a huge number of companies in the supply chain across the UK offering to help manufacture for nothing.

“We were all ready to get regional manufacturing teams up and running to supply their local hospitals.’’

Over the last two years Nick has restructured and refocused Gtech on high performance, long-lasting products, good marketing and customer service.

“During the pandemic because everything happened so quickly, it felt like every business was having issues maintaining good customer service, so that is currently a huge focus for us right now.”

Haines Watts Partner view

I was first introduced to Nick through Haines Watts’ partner John Elliott, as I was to be John’s successor on the Gtech account. Right at the start of the client-succession process, we wanted to ensure Nick was comfortable with the transition as John had taken care of Nick’s business matters since Gtech’s inception.

John had given me a clear idea on where Gtech was as a business so I could determine what would work best for Nick. It was vital to keep the business moving forward during the handover period and so we set to work with our plans.

It was important for me to understand whether Gtech had any vulnerabilities, what Nick’s ultimate goal was for the company and what outcome he was hoping for. I also assessed his short and long-term needs for the business.

Good planning in the early stages allowed for a successful and smooth transition for both Haines Watts and Gtech and we have retained our relationship with the client. We work closely with Nick to support his growth ambitions. We have also built a really good working relationship with the finance team at Gtech and have helped the business with their statutory compliance.

Nick is passionate about R&D and very hands-on as a businessman. Our R&D tax credit specialists work closely with Nick and his finance team to ensure Gtech takes full advantage of the Government’s R&D Tax credits scheme. We have been able to give him practical advice on incentives to deliver robust maximised claims. The rebates enable Nick to continue investing in innovation.

Tim Pearce Haines Watts managing partner, Evesham & Worcester

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