John Lewis to make protective gowns for the NHS
John Lewis is reopening its Lancashire textiles factory to enable it to make protective gowns for the NHS.
Staff at the Herbert Parkinson factory usually sew bespoke blinds, curtains, pillows and duvets, but this week will switch to making around 8,000 clinical gowns for the Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust.
In addition, John Lewis is donating over 20,000 metres of cotton fabric from its haberdashery departments and distribution centres to the For the Love of Scrubs and Scrubs Glorious Scrubs groups that are making scrubs for the NHS. The donated fabric will be enough to produce around 6,000 scrubs.
Stuart McDonald, head of Herbert Parkinson, said: “We’re all looking forward to re-opening our factory and threading our sewing machines again to play our part in helping the NHS. 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.”
Earlier this month, John Lewis announced that it had created a wellbeing area for staff at the Nightingale Hospital in London. It has now also designed two wellbeing areas and a multi-faith room at the Nightingale Hospital in Manchester.
In a further move, the retailer will begin donating 250 electrical products this week for use in staff rooms and wellbeing areas in 25 acute London hospitals and in the Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate. Products will include coffee machines, kettles and toasters.
