A TEAM of Malvern women has been making a difference during the coronavirus crisis, turning pillow cases into laundry bags for NHS staff.

Members of the Inner Wheel Club of Malvern have spent the last few weeks sewing up pillow cases to make the bags for Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

Linda Foxall, instigator of the campaign, said: “When the call came to start stitching bags and to deliver our efforts to our local hospital, my first thought was that no one in their right mind was likely to go anywhere near a hospital if they did not need to and I duly dismissed it.

“My daughter is NHS management in Derbyshire and when I mentioned it to her, she said that her hospitals had been gifted many thousands of bags by a benevolent firm nearby and were not in need of any.

The following day I received a message from a Nottinghamshire nurse in the Mental Health Trust. She said that donations were given to main hospitals and that special mental heath, mother and baby units, dementia wards and physiotherapy wards, all of which were nursing Covid patients were forgotten, and could we possibly spirit up some bags for her. And so it began.

“We asked other clubs in the area including Worcestershire Ladies Golf, Malvern Tennis, the local Knit and Natter group and they responded with enthusiasm.

“It felt as if we were one big, united mass, working together in some small way to repay an enormous debt of gratitude.

"One golf club group worked individually at first but later became a cottage industry and produced 100 beautifully-made bags in a week.”