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Scottish hospitals have asked the public and schools to help make homemade safety visors, after medical unions said that widespread shortages of protective equipment was hampering doctors’ efforts to treat patients.

A schoolteacher at Lochaber high school in Fort William, Stephen Stewart, started making transparent screens for visors on his school’s 3D printer after doctors at Belford hospital appealed for extra supplies.

Stephen Stewart (@Stephen_THC) Yesterday I got a phone call from a consultant in the Belford Hospital. They heard @LochaberHigh have a 3D printer and they are in need of visors for medical staff. After a few prototypes I am now printing these for our NHS! @KateForbesMSP @Ianblackford_MP @NickyGrant10 pic.twitter.com/zOvVoCQlig

Technicians at the Royal Children’s hospital in Glasgow issued a public appeal for donations of acetate so they could make visors in-house. Radio Clyde, the local radio station, said the acetate could be used across Scotland.

Radio Clyde News (@RadioClydeNews) 🎥 ‼️ URGENT APPEAL ‼️



The technicians at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Glasgow are asking for donations of 1/2mm thick acetate sheets to make face visors to protect staff working through the #coronavirus pandemic.



It would help hospitals across the country.



Can you help? pic.twitter.com/TnwuQtf4C7

The British Medical Association and Royal College of Nurses said their members around Scotland experienced significant shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), particularly face masks, visors and aprons, as well as hand sanitiser, despite assurances enough equipment would be available.

The BMA Scotland said its doctors routinely had to chase supplies with line managers, which cut the time they had for treating patients, or were having to stop treating patients because they did not have the right PPE equipment.

Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, acknowledged there were problems with supplies in some areas, but there were new plans being implemented to streamline and expand supplies.

She said during the Scottish government’s daily coronavirus briefing it was equally important to make sure the right supplies were sent to the right places, to avoid unnecessary stocks building up where they were not needed. She said:

We’ve always said that there are distribution issues in some parts of the country, so that’s not news, but we’re working consistently to try and identify exactly what the difficulties are and then overcome those.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said: