Prison staff at HMP Kilmarnock are among a team of 35 people sewing scrubs for NHS staff in Ayrshire and Arran.

Around 1,000 scrubs are being made for Ayrshire and Arran hospitals and medical centres as part of a charity drive by NHS Scotland – For the Love of Scrubs.

Hospitals are running low on personal protective equipment, so volunteers from across the region have stepped up to provide our healthcare service with some much-needed equipment.

A spokesperson from For the Love of Scrubs said: “We have had stories of GPs having to attend COVID patients wearing bin bags as gowns. We’ve had NHS personnel begging us to send scrubs direct because they’re not being filtered down to them by the hospitals because of such high demand in other areas. We have COVID centres opening where none of the staff have scrubs. It’s simply not good enough.”

“We are running a campaign to raise money, make and donate scrubs to the NHS across Scotland. We’ve raised nearly £25k in just over a week but it’s just not enough. We need to get the word out there. We have the manpower and we have the structure, we just need the money.”

The charity collects funds via their GoFundMe page.

Donations are made centrally and then distributed across regions. The money donated goes towards purchasing materials. Local coordinators then issue materials to volunteers to sew into the finished scrubs.

Karen Vaughan, Ayrshire & Arran Co-ordinator recruits seamstresses and tailors to help with the effort. She said: “So far we have 35 sewers (plus a team of staff from HMP Bowhouse) sewing around 1,000 scrubs for use in Ayrshire & Arran hospitals and medical centres. They stretch from Girvan, right up to Beith/Kilbirnie and out to Darvel.

“From fashion students to retired seamstresses, some are housebound, some self-isolating because they are high risk, some have small children, some are unable to attend their work place.”

“We have received approximately 840 metres of fabric to date, purchased with donations made by the general public. Each set of scrubs uses between two and three metres of fabric, so you can see we desperately need more to meet the demand.”

Pamela Swan, Acting Director, at HMP Kilmarnock said “I am so proud of my Serco colleagues – they have been so quick and eager to assist with this important initiative, and they have my full support.

“It is crucial in these unprecedented times that we provide any assistance we can to our NHS colleagues”.

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