The country is crying out for PPE, again in this mornings news, "There is "relatively low confidence" a delayed delivery of 400,000 protective gowns will arrive on Monday, " ........... volunteer groups of sewers are making scrubs and laundry bags, out of any material, they can find, duvets and sheets etc, bit of a sad state, the price paid for relying on cheap overseas manufacturing, I suspect there will be a great many changes, when we get ourselves sorted........Well I hope so.
Government 'ignores' UK textiles firms desperate to make PPEToo much emphasis placed on brand names to help during coronavirus crisis, say industry sources.
The government has been too slow to enlist British textile firms to make protective gear for the NHS, according to industry figures, who say they have been desperate to contribute to the “war effort”.
Faced with a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the Cabinet Office has only recently begun scrambling to source it from UK suppliers and has now outsourced the process to consultants from accountancy group Deloitte.
Industry figures said too much emphasis had been placed on high-profile names such as Burberry, the luxury fashion house that Matt Hancock said on 3 April was producing medical gowns.
Kate Hills, the founder of Make It British, which promotes brands that manufacture in the UK, said the government was ignoring less well-known textile specialists in favour of household names that play well with the public. “They’re just picking out brand names,” she said.
“The people who can make this PPE are not well-known names, they are contract manufacturers behind the scenes. They’ve filled in the government’s request forms and heard nothing back.”
Full article
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/16/government-ignores-uk-textiles-firms-desperate-to-make-ppe
