John Lewis is reopening its textiles factory ‘Herbert Parkinson’ in Lancashire to make protective gowns for the NHS. Partners who usually sew bespoke blinds, curtains, pillows and duvets will make around 8,000 washable, clinical gowns for the Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

The retailer is also donating over 20,000 metres of cotton fabric from its haberdashery departments and distribution centres. This will go to For the Love of Scrubs and Scrubs Glorious Scrubs; groups that now have thousands of members who are making scrubs for the NHS. The fabric donation is expected to make around 6,000 scrubs.

Commenting is Stuart McDonald, head of Herbert Parkinson. “We expect to be able to produce around 2,000 gowns per week. The fabric we are donating for scrubs could have no better use than to keep people safe.

“Over the past few weeks, we have already donated over 400 metres of fabric to groups making face masks and scrubs for their local hospitals, pharmacies, care homes and communities. They have told us that this has enabled them to make over 3,000 face mask linings and 75 sets of scrubs.”

John Lewis has already created a wellbeing area for staff at NHS Nightingale London. Equally, it has been working with the BMA to deliver 60,000 essentials to key NHS staff.

Also commenting is Sir James Mackey, chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. “We will be forever grateful for this support from John Lewis, which will directly and positively impact on our frontline workers and patients – helping to keep them safe.

 

 

“It is clear we can only tackle the challenges faced through utilising local channels and relationships to do so. It is this spirit of pulling together that has helped us to achieve so many things over recent weeks; at pace and without any outside influence. We need to embrace with open arms all offers of help and turn these into actions that support our staff and patients.”

The retailer is also donating 250 electrical products such as coffee machines, kettles and toasters to the staff rooms and wellbeing areas at 25 acute London hospitals and the Nightingale Hospitals in Harrogate.

This is alongside designing two wellbeing areas and a multi-faith room for NHS staff at the Nightingale in Manchester.

Recently the Partnership also launched a children’s competition to design a “super-bear”. The top design will be sold at Christmas with 100% of the profits going to the NHS.