Liverpool Hope University has shipped thousands of items of crucial PPE to hospitals in the city, in a gesture of solidarity during the Covid-19 crisis.
The personal protective equipment has been donated from the University’s School of Health Sciences laboratories and consists of 16,000 pairs of gloves.
The gesture comes in a week where BBC’s Panorama programme heavily criticised the Government for failing to adequately stockpile PPE amid growing concern about shortages across the UK, and reports some frontline workers are having to wash and reuse items.
Professor Michael Lavalette, head of Hope University’s School of Social Sciences who helped launch the initiative, said: “Our NHS and medical staff are doing an incredible job in exceptional circumstances and we want to help them in any way we can.
“As a university, we realised that we had a significant amount of PPE in reserve and held on campus, typically used in a lab setting.
“We’ve now made available that available to the Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, where it can be distributed to the wards and units in the city who need it most during these difficult days.
“It’s a small gesture from us, but one we hope signals solidarity in this time of crisis.”
Earlier this month, the university also launched a project to supply nurses across Liverpool with hand cream in a bid to soothe skin left cracked and painful from repeated washing.
So far, they have fundraised more than £3,000 in donations after co-organiser Fiona Hough – a former nurse who now works in the external relations department at the university – called for £4 donations from the public.
The money will be used to purchase hand lotion with the first batches already ordered.
Fiona said: “Nurses and other NHS frontline staff are working heroically to keep us all safe during these testing times, and our small gesture is simply the least we can do to help make their lives more comfortable.
“Hope, as a University, is committed to giving something back to the community in which we operate, and it’s vital we support our selfless NHS workers at this time.”
The initiative comes thanks to a partnership with Body Shop At Home, who are supplying the hand cream and have waived any commission and instead put their fee back into the donation pot.
