Valentine’s Newsletter
This month, as we all know, it’s about love, so we at the Scrubbery thought we could and should, share the love with our frontline workers and Rosie suggested we put together wellbeing care bags for them. She designed and crafted these special draw string bags made out of upcycled materials that had been donated but were unsuitable for scrubs and scrub accessories with the idea of filling them with donated treats. These can be donated to all London NHS trust hospitals. The bags are destined for doctors and nurses coming off shift – something so that they know we are thinking about them, and care for them. Rosie did some research, asking a sample of doctors, what would be a pick me up or what would they like to receive in such a package. Here are some of their ideas:
Pampering items – scented candles / scented soaps / cosmetics – skin & hair care
Practical items – quality pens / insulated mugs (small) / socks for sore feet / lunch boxes, travel cutlery or silicone snack bags
Mindful activity – artwork to colour in / uplifting messages / flower seeds – to grow something beautiful
Food items – energy bars / chocolates / premium teas and coffees / little luxuries
Well-being items – Vitamin D tablets / vitamins generally / hand serums for over washed hands
Vouchers of any sort, for example, food, flowers, pot plants, books and stationery
The team jumped in and are busy sewing the bags and collating the donations.
If you can provide any items to fit into these shoe box sized bags, then please drop them off at the Scrubbery or contact Rosie or Lucy on scrubbery.stitch@gmail.com and we can arrange for a collection. If you have any contacts within large suppliers, who might have stock they want to donate, please let us know and we can reach out to them.
Our aim is to initially make a thousand bags that contain something from each of the above categories for both males and females – we want to bring a smile to their faces when they receive the bags, and for them to know they are loved and appreciated.
To make this even simpler, we have additionally set up an Amazon wishlist – where we itemised examples of the kinds of products we are looking for. Anyone can go to the list and choose the items that to donate, and they will be sent directly to the Scrubbery – so easy for everyone. Feel free to share the link with any of your friends who might like to donate in this way.
Monthly Milestones:
We are still working hard to fulfil requests for all the various surgeries, hospitals and vaccine clinics, here are some of the sites we have delivered scrubs and scrub accessories to this month:
The Scrubbery Surgery
Riverview Park Surgery, in Gravesend
Bethlem Royal Hospital
Lee Health Centre
Oxleas NHS Community Hospital
Paediatric Infections Diseases Research Group (St Georges’)
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability
Putney Mead Vaccine Clinic
Mayfield Park, Elborough St Surgery, Apsley House
The Junction Health Centre
Greyswood Practice
The Frimley Health Centre
Gravesend Alliance Primary Care
Bridge Lane Hot Hub
Mayfield Hot Hub
Bedford Hill Family Practice
The Intravenous Vascular Access Team at Frimley Park Hospital
The Evelina London Children’s Hospital at St Thomas’ – headbands and scrub bags
St George’s University Hospital -headbands, and scrub hats
Northwick Park Hospital – scrubs and headbands
GlassDoor and the Parish of Putney both received face masks
Wandsworth Food Bank – custom-made drawstring bags
Grazina Gudaviciene, from the BoE security team, has made a stunning set of hand made thank you cards for the wellbeing bags, using offcuts of scrub fabric.
Update on Rosie and Fleur’s Zoom call with the NHS supply chain :
At the end of January Rosie met with NHS supply chain executives, in a meeting organised by Putney MP, Fleur Anderson.
As well as Rosie, Fleur and her staff, those present included Rob Young, head of “Category Towers” responsible for the overall procurement service for NHS supply chain; Kevin Chidlow, Category Tower Director - Hotel Services, responsible for non-clinical supplies; Joanna Morrison, Head of Public Affairs & PR at NHS Supply Chain.
Rosie opened with a brief presentation outlining the problems the Scrubbery had been organised to help resolve and made some suggestions to help with the ongoing supply issues. These were:
Bridge the communication gap between those buying/using scrubs and DHSC and Trust management.
Designate scrubs as PPE – to ensure they get the increased priority and attention they need.
Centralise procurement and distribution to reduce cost and administration overhead.
Form a Government focus group to redesign and standardise the scrub pattern and colours and to look at local manufacture.
Review the NHS directive to wear uniform.
In response the NHS supply chain was described in detail, how they operated, the kinds of items they source and supply (around 12,000 core products chosen from a catalogue of over 400,000) and how they deliver these to trusts. It was explained that hospital trusts are not obliged to get supplies from this organisation, they can also choose to buy from other suppliers.
Rosie said that the hospitals are struggling to be able to find suppliers from whom they can buy and there is now a problem importing from abroad.
Kevin said that they operate a scrub agreement, not just scrubs but also uniforms, tunics, fleeces, jackets, ties which hospitals can choose to use or they can put their own agreements in place, though around 70% do choose this. Most manufacturing is offshore, mainly Bangladesh historically. He noted that in the early stages of the pandemic they provided around 800,000 sets of scrubs, and laundry services provided a similar amount. During this time, they fulfilled every request that they had, but some trusts could have been sourcing scrubs elsewhere and encountering shortages. Production has been increased in Europe and North Africa to fill demand. He confirmed there had been supply problems in April and May but during the summer they were healthy.
Rosie observed the Royal Brompton came to the Scrubbery saying that they couldn’t get any scrubs, they said that they had 500 people turning up for every shift and that they could get a maximum of 230 sets of scrubs through the laundry service and they had to change providers.
Kevin’s team do not have management of the laundry services, the trust locally makes a decision whether they want to use managed laundries or not. This means that the Royal Brompton would not have come through the NHS supply chain route and they would have made their own decisions going their own route which is why they may have had problems.
Fleur said that she has seen the orders list at the Scrubbery with a huge variety of people who have been unable to get scrubs and asked what the mismatch was. Kevin said it is not easy, and we would probably have to go into how each Trust involved works with the supply chain to find out who they were actually asking the question of. He looked against their records for some of these Trusts and there were very few orders going through the NHS framework.
In response to the question of scrubs being designated as PPE this wasn’t something that they controlled but was a matter for DHSC.
Discussions on centralising the procurement and distribution focussed on the fact that NHS trusts are not obliged to use the NHS Supply chain and can make their own arrangements. Furthermore, they are often tied into laundry contracts for 4 years and these are completely decentralised and vary considerably in capabilities. Rosie pointed out that Trusts are having to reinvent how they do things so each and every Trust is doing the heavy lifting, therefore it is expensive administratively for all of these Trusts to all be doing all of the same things. Fleur asked who makes policy in this area and was it under review. Rob suggested talking to the DHSC and the Public Accounts committee.
For standardising the specification of scrubs and bringing the pattern up to date, they advised that the current design has been extended because of the pandemic, but that the NHS Supply chain recognise the value in updating the design and also the work done by NHS Wales and NHS Scotland to create a standard uniform specification. They are lobbying for changes, though they don’t make the policy themselves. A consultation process for this is likely to take place in the spring.
Kevin reiterated that there should be sufficient product now and if there are bottle necks then should work with him to resolve the supply bottleneck. Rob said that the objective was for NHS Supply Chain to get 80% market share, so they absolutely did want to include scrubs in their framework.
Overall, the conversation was constructive, and some follow up actions will take place over the next few weeks, in particular attempting to address the mismatch between NHS Supply Chain saying they had no supply problem with scrubs and our growing request list for scrubs. Many thanks to Fleur Anderson for arranging this meeting.
Donations & Thank You – there are always so many to mention:
Radio Jackie.com has been airing a request for donations and help sewing, as well as talking about the Scrubbery, and on the back of that, we have received a donation of 2 sewing machines already. So, thank you to them for the airtime and plugging “the cause”. Thanks are due to them for their ongoing support in these difficult times.
We have always been very well supported by the Bank of England – in particular Paul Buckingham and Suzanne Benson. The Bank of England has donated generously to our wellbeing bag appeal already, a collection of insulated mugs will be much coveted, as will the food bars. A big thank you to them for all their ongoing generosity.
A HUGE thank you to the Deodar Merrivale Florian Resident Association which has also very generously donated boxes and boxes of fabulous items for the bags so thank you to them, it will bring so much joy. Geraldine Scher from Chilli Bean Ltd deserves a special mention for galvanising and promoting the effort there.
We had several boxes of samples of luxury hand serum delivered from the luxury skincare brand Verso in Sweden via their PR agency PURE PR.
Wei, another high end cosmetic and skincare brand, donated perfect small bottles of cosmetics - all courtesy of Annie Bruce at Foothold so thanks are due to her.
Thanks too, to Lisa Lopez of Squires Garden Centres in Twickenham who donated socks, perfumes, candles, soaps, and chocolates, among other things, for our well-being care packages.
Finally, our wonderful team of drivers and collectors needs a mention – they cover the whole country practically and turn up at a moments notice, so THANK YOU to you all.
Massive thanks to the Volunteer Riders for all their astonishing efforts, criss-crossing the country on our behalf.
Once again thank you for your incredible support, generosity, time and enthusiasm, as the first year under new rules passes, our work continues, and your contribution makes it all possible.