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Sewing scrubs for NHS staff
A new voluntary group has been set up to make and deliver much-needed scrubs to NHS staff in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.
ScrubHub Bristol is helping to tackle the national shortage of scrubs in the NHS.
Set up by Amanda George at We Make Bristol, a gift shop in Westbury-on-Trym, ScrubHub Bristol is a voluntary group of sewers making new sanitary uniforms for staff working in the city, now everyone is stuck indoors.
is needed now More than ever
“I read by chance that there is a national shortage of scrubs and found a ScrubHub that a group of ladies had set up in Hackney,” says Amanda, who had then had the idea to set up a Bristol group.
After getting in contact with sewers from We Make Bristol and on Facebook, she set up a volunteering group and Go Fund Me campaign and has already ordered hard wearing, machine washable fabric and supplies.
The group has already received orders from GPs and hospital doctors and has been working with fabric wholesalers.
“I’m running the organisation side and have a great team of sewers with me which is great,” Amanda adds. “We will be operating safely with a 100 per cent no physical contact policy.”
All of ScrubHub Bristol’s fabric and supplies will be ordered online and collected from Amanda’s porch by volunteer sewers. To deliver the scrubs, the group will liaise with each individual NHS staff who has placed an order to find out whether they want to collect their scrubs, have them hand delivered or posted using Royal Mail.
Collected and hand delivered will again involve no physical contact, using a ‘leave outside’ policy. For posted scrubs, the group are using Royal Mail’s click and drop method.
NHS staff wearing scrubs. Photo courtesy of University Hospitals Bristol
The main issue currently being faced by the group of sewers is that the template for the uniform has been separated into multiple A4 sheets – the tops consist of 36 pages of A4 alone. The group are asking for anyone with a plotter to get in touch to make the process of making the clothes easier.
ScrubHub Bristol is encouraging GPs and hospital staff to get in touch and for sewers across the city to get involved.
There is also a Go Fund Me campaign that the public can donate to, with Amanda saying: “All funds raised will be used to cover material and delivery costs so we can make more scrubs and help more doctors and NHS workers.
“Any leftover funds at the end of the scrubs shortage we will donate to NHS Practitioner health, an organisation dedicated to supporting the unique needs of health care professionals and their mental health, which we think will be of great importance in the coming months.”
Find out more by going to www.facebook.com/ScrubHubBristolUK or emailing scrubsbristoluk@gmail.com. Donate to the Go Fund Me at www.gofundme.com/f/scrub-hub-bristol-uk
Main photo by Anna Baylis
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