Car giant Nissan is ramping up its efforts to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to frontline NHS staff.

The Japanese manufacturer has confirmed it hopes to make up to 70,000 gowns a week from its Sunderland plant, in addition to the visors already being assembled and distributed from the site.

It follows a call from the Royal College of Nursing for UK firms to use any spare capacity to help meet ‘unprecedented’ demands for PPE in the country’s hospitals.

Adam Pennick, Nissan’s production director, said: “We are proud to support our healthcare workers wherever we can during this crisis.

“The team at the plant have done an excellent job in creating a production process in such a short space of time. It really highlights the skill and dedication we have in our team at Sunderland Plant.”

According to Nissan, it took a team of volunteers at the Washington plant just eight days to design and build a bespoke system to manufacture plastic aprons.

Initial capacity will be 18,000 per week, but it is hoped this could be rapidly scaled up to more than 70,000.

Using government-approved specifications a process has been devised to make non-sterile grade aprons out of tear resistant polythene.

Work is being carried out at the Gateshead College Skills Academy for Sustainable Manufacturing and Innovation, which is based at the plant, which is also next door to the planned 460-bed North East Nightingale Hospital.

Production started this week and already the plant has 47,000 orders from NHS trusts.

Last week the car-maker also confirmed it was using its Sunderland factory to assemble and distribute up to 100,000 protective visors to hospitals every week.

The new initiative was inspired by the efforts of four brothers, two of whom work at Japanese manufacturer’s Technical Centre, in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, who started making face guards from home with their own 3D printers.

Nissan confirmed at the beginning of April it was placing most of the 7,000 staff working at it’s Washington base on furlough, following March’s decision to suspend vehicle production.