London business-woman Lynn Mackie, who had closed down her textile business due to Covid-19, has helped fellow business-owners open their factories back up and reemploy machinists – to make scrubs for our clinical teams.

As we care for Covid-19 patients, we need more scrubs than ever. Therefore Lynn, whose usual business is making uniforms for high-end hotels and restaurants, has been able to step in and help keep supplies topped up, while keeping her business and others up and running.

She said: “There is no demand for uniforms due to Covid-19 so there was absolutely no work for me. Factory-owners who I worked with had to close down and as many of the machinists are freelance, this meant they had to be laid off. It’s been really difficult.

“So when I found out about this it was a really easy decision to make to help the NHS. I’ve been calling in all the favours I can from decades in the industry so we can supply the scrubs at cost. It’s also great that it’s meant factories have been reopened, and machinists are back at work.”

Scrubs from the first order of 12,000 sets of scrubs are due to begin to be delivered to our hospitals from next week.

Social distancing measures are being taken across the factories to keep the machinists safe, with them sitting at machines spaced apart and some even taking material home with them to make our scrubs!