Sent with our deepest thanks, life-saving kit for hero carers
Home takes delivery of medical gowns
STAFF at a Scots care home have taken delivery of vital protective equipment.
Mail Force – the charity created by the Daily Mail and its partners – supplied two boxes of medical gowns to Croftbank House care home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire.
Manager Maxine Kinnoch was on hand to take delivery of the welcome personal protective equipment (PPE) and was delighted with it.
She said: ‘PPE is so essential to ensure the continued safety of all staff and residents here at the home. We’ve been very well stocked thanks to early purchasing and generous donations from the community. This goes a long way to helping residents and staff stay safe on a daily basis.’
The home, near Tunnock’s Bakery, is operated by Renaissance Care, which runs 15 homes across Scotland.
A spokesman for the company said: ‘We are very grateful for the generous delivery of PPE from the Daily Mail. Community spirit and substantial donations have been overwhelming.
‘This support means the world to our homes and really helps towards the continued safety and positive morale of our people.’
The latest delivery of vital PPE to care staff in Scotland follows the arrival of Mail Force’s maiden charity flight of PPE from China.
The 20-ton planeload of safety gear touched down on UK soil last month, with kit quickly transported north of the Border.
The chartered airlift is the first of a series of planned flights organised by Mail Force.
The campaign to arm our health workers with the protection they need has already been welcomed across the political spectrum, with Health Secretary Jeane Freeman saying it was helping to increase the supply of PPE available to frontline staff.
Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw praised it as ‘campaigning journalism at its absolute best’, while former Prime Minister Gordon Brown described it as an ‘important initiative’.
Earlier this month, Mail Force supplies reached the Robin House Hospice in Balloch, Dunbartonshire, to protect staff and the children they care for.
NHS workers in Scotland have also benefited, with staff at the NHS Distribution Centre in Lanarkshire taking delivery of boxes of face masks and coveralls last month. Workers there described the PPE as ‘the difference between life and death’ for frontline staff.
The latest Mail Force delivery in Scotland comes after it was revealed last week that care home operators will have to repay the Scottish Government for any additional supplies of personal safety equipment provided.
Private firms will have to pay back additional costs for providing gloves, overalls, visors and other items of PPE.
The development led to a backlash from industry leaders, who said they have never been told they would be expected to repay the Government.
One company boss said it could be enough to send smaller operators out of business.
Mail Force has been launched to help support NHS staff, volunteers and care workers as they fight back against Covid-19 in the UK. It is a separate charity established and supported by the Daily Mail and General Trust.
The money raised will fund essential equipment required by the NHS and care workers. This equipment is vital in protecting the heroic staff while they perform their fantastic work in helping the UK overcome this pandemic. If we
‘This support means the world’
raise more money than is needed for Covid-19 equipment, we will apply all funds to support the work of the NHS in other ways.
Mail Force also delivered PPE to staff at Erskine Care Homes on VE Day, allowing staff to deepclean the rooms of vulnerable residents at the veterans’ homes using kit brought in to help stem the spread of Covid-19. The PPE equipment is due to be used at the charity’s homes – two in Renfrewshire and one each in Glasgow and Edinburgh – and complement a new ‘fogging’ machine, which it is using to deep-clean premises.
IT’S just two weeks since we asked Mail readers to help alleviate the shortage of personal protective equipment that was endangering care workers and NHS staff.
In that time you have donated a truly aweinspiring £1.9million. With philanthropic and corporate gifts, this means the total we have been able to give to the charity Mail Force is £6.9million.
Plans are well under way for the next airlift of essential PPE for those on the front line. Make no mistake, your remarkable generosity is making a real difference.