A textile entrepreneur is helping fellow business-owners stay afloat by making scrubs for Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trusts.

Lynn Mackie had to close her business which makes uniforms for high-end hotels and restaurants, due to coronavirus. She has been stepping in to help keep supplies at both Romford’s Queen’s Hospital and King George in Goodmayes is topped up, while keeping her business as well as keeping her machinists and factories open.

The Trust needs more scrubs than ever as clinical staff care for Covid-19 patients.

She said: “There is no demand for uniforms due to Covid-19 so there was absolutely no work for me. Factory-owners who I worked with had to close down and as many of the machinists are freelance, this meant they had to be laid off. It’s been really difficult.

“So when I found out about this it was a really easy decision to make to help the NHS. I’ve been calling in all the favours I can from decades in the industry so we can supply the scrubs at cost. It’s also great that it’s meant factories have been reopened, and machinists are back at work.”

Scrubs from the first order of 12,000 sets of scrubs are due to begin to be delivered to the hospitals from next week.

Lynn Mackie ensures social distancing measures are being taken across the factories to keep the machinists safe, with them sitting at machines spaced apart and some even taking material home with them to make scrubs.

The English National Opera costume department have also swapped their elaborate period gowns for scrubs, and have been busy delivering scrubs to London hospitals