Several people have been getting busy and using their skills and expertise to help bolster supplies of equipment including PPE and scrubs.

One of them is Jay Francois-Campbell, from Gillingham, whose creations have been worn by stars of stage and screen.

Jay is a lecturer at Morley College in London and works out of her studio at the Nucleus Arts Centre in Chatham High Street.

She has 30 years' experience as a professional costume maker, and has made costumes for productions including The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard.

Having made inquiries with Medway Maritime Hospital, she decided to make scrubs and donate them.

Together with Anabell O'Docherty, another costume maker from Bromley, money was raised to buy materials and she formed a team with her assistants Alice Keal and Anni Silvdvee, who both work in London.

Jay said: "Seeing as I have got all the equipment and the know-how to assemble them, I thought it's just a little bit of helping them out in some way.

"As we are out of work with everything at a standstill, we thought as we have the equipment and professional know-how, that we would produce those much-needed scrubs, free of charge, after Anabell raised the funds through donations.

Another lecturer who has turned to making vital equipment is Mark Addy from Gravesend.

He has set up a production line involving his sons Jack, 11, and Josh, 12, at his laser cutting workshop in Ebbsfleet.

Mark – who teaches 3D design at North Kent College – has also got his wife Simone, who runs a cake making business, involved.

He said: "Our friend said his sister-in-law was on the frontline and he was very concerned about her."

Mark's friend asked if he could help make visors for the hospital she works for in Manchester.

Within days, he had got in touch with a boarding school which was using its facilities to make visors, learned from them how to make the equipment and had sent them off to be used in Manchester.

Since then, he has had orders from funeral parlours, care homes and hospitals.

He set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for materials and maintenance costs and has so far collected more than £2,000.

Mark added: "It's amazing how many people are linked in with the NHS. There's so many like drivers, receptionists, paramedics and nurses; it's just vast."

Others across the county turning their hand to making scrubs include Toni Gager and her daughter Valentina Williams, who run Love Alterations in Vigo Village near Gravesend and Sue Bugden, from Wingham, who set about sewing scrubs for the nurses who saved her life.

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