Supporting Our NHS - C&W Helps Produce Scrubs For Local NHS Assessment Centre
During the pandemic Carr & Westley joined the band of volunteers working to assist with the NHS scrub shortage.
Here at Carr & Westley we tried to do everything we could to help with the challenges of the pandemic. We hit the phones to call as many loyal customers as possible, to offer a friendly voice at a difficult time. We also decided to put our factory to work and help fix the NHS scrub shortage.
As the coronavirus outbreak took hold, hospitals and other medical facilities across the UK are struggled to get hold of enough scrubs. Our aim was to help supply a local NHS assessment centre staffed by GPs with scrubs and gowns.
Drawing Around The Pattern & Cutting The Fabric
The factory here in Hadlow, Kent has been producing women’s clothing for over 100 years, but we have never made hospital scrubs. We accepted the challenge and started by finding a pattern online, so that we could cut our first batch.
Sewing a gown in our Kentish factory
We have used material that we had available in stock, that would normally be used for ladies’ tops, trousers, dresses and skirts. We then created a couple of prototypes and started production, all within 24 hours! Meanwhile, we stayed open as usual and really appreciated your support during this time, in turn helping us assist the NHS and local community.
The brightly patterned finished gown
We were thrilled to receive a photo from the assessment centre, with one of the wonderful doctors modeling the slightly unconventional scrubs!
We supported our own efforts by reaching out to the local community through Facebook, asking for help to sew together the extras that we had cut. We were blown away by the response. We achieved our target of plugging the gap until new supplies arrived from the government. Thanks again to anybody that help!
