RESIDENTS across the county are dusting off their sewing machines and putting them through their paces in order to provide scrubs and laundry bags for healthcare workers.

Groups of individuals and pockets of communities dotted across the conurbation have been doing their bit to help provide necessary equipment to help ease the shortage experienced by NHS and care staff across the country.

A team of over twenty volunteers, calling themselves the Dorset Scrub Hub Team, have been working flat to donate urgently needed scrubs to front line workers in the NHS and Social Care Sector.

On the groups crowdfunding page, organiser Betty Lanary said: “As you can imagine, scrubs are now in extremely high demand as many doctors and nurses do not usually wear scrubs.

“However, we now know that this is the safest and easiest way for front liners to dress for protection during the Covid -19 crisis.”

The group is one of 114 ScrubHubs across England, Scotland and Wales, and two in the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch area, devoted to making scrubs for frontline workers

The group have self-funded the first batch of scrubs but are looking for donations in order to carry on making more.

The cost price for a full set of scrubs is £15, and all funds raised will be solely used to cover material costs

Any leftover funds at the end of the crisis will be donated to the NHS Practitioner health, an organisation dedicated to supporting the unique needs of health care professionals and their mental health.

A physiotherapist at the OPAL Team at Royal Bournemouth Hospital currently on maternity leave is not letting the fact that she is isolating at home stop her from helping her team, by making laundry bags out of pillowcases.

Lizzie Dunn and her mother-in-law Viv Jones sent pleas to her neighbours in Burton and Highcliffe respectively and have so far managed to upcycle the donations into over 200 laundry bags for staff.

Lizzie’s husband Joe Dunn, who works in Dorset Healthcare myself, said: “The laundry bags simply give peace of mind to staff that after their shifts their uniforms can go straight into clean bags and go straight into the wash once home.

“The response from all of our neighbours has been fantastic, people have dropped attaching notes to say how good it is that they feel they can contribute.

“One lady even purchased new pillowcases to help resource the effort and one of our very kind neighbours even offered a free sewing machine repair if needed - which Lizzie has taken use of as her machine packed up about halfway through.”

“The donations keep coming, so they are hoping to continue to supply more to the hospital staff over the coming days.”

To donate to Scrubs for Dorset, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/scrubs-for-dorset.