MORE than 15,000 personal protective equipment items have been donated to support frontline workers by the Harwell site of nuclear management company Magnox.

These items include disposable respirators, suits and gloves and comes from both Magnox and its contractors and suppliers.

All the PPE can be spared without impacting on nuclear safety or emergency preparedness, Magnox's CEO Gwen Parry-Jones confirmed.

While it would ordinarily be used to support the delivery of work and projects on the Magnox sites, much of its work has been temporarily paused while the country focuses on responding to the pandemic.

Mr Parry-Jones said: "A key part of our response to Covid-19 is to help other organisations deal with the pandemic wherever we can.

"Clearly the need for PPE across the UK is urgent and our sites have done a fantastic job to identify PPE in Magnox stores that could safely be shared to support frontline response work.

"The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has given us their full support in passing this stock to local resilience forums in the communities in which we operate, while retaining enough to deal with any emergency that might arise at our sites."