A girls school has stepped in to help local doctors and health workers after a thief stole PPE from health staff.

Staff at Flixton Girls’ School in Trafford have begun making personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers at Salford Royal Infirmary, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, local GP surgeries and pharmacies to support them in the fight against coronavirus.

After NHS offices in Salford experienced a break-in last weekend over the weekend where vital PPE was stolen, one of the sisters who used to attend Flixton Girls’ School herself reached out to her old teachers for help.

Other doctors in the community also got in touch with staff asking for support and they rose to the challenge and began making and sourcing facemasks and other equipment.

Ms Foxley, head of art, health and wellbeing at the school, has begun making face visors with her team.

She said: “When we saw other design and technology departments making this kind of PPE we jumped at the chance of helping out. We all want to do what we can to support our frontline workers and we aim to keep production running for as long as we can source the materials, so if anyone does have any polypropylene (0.5 thickness) please send our way.”

The school has since set up an Amazon wishlist and is looking into how parents and the community can make donations, with many eager to help.

Art department technician, Bernie, has also begun creating safety compliant PPE for hospital workers and other frontline staff.

Headmistress Ms Julie Hazeldine said: “We have the machines and the expertise to do this.

“We first started to look at this three weeks ago when our head of science, Mikle Darby, was contacted by two of his doctor friends asking for science masks.

“We provided quite a number for their hospitals and the week before last we took boxes of these safety compliant goggle masks to three of our local GP practices and pharmacy.”

The headmistress added the school has been contacted by “several members of the community” about their initiative.

Dr Mark Jarvis, medical director at NHS Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said: “We have witnessed some true acts of kindness in our communities during this difficult time and I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who has made offers of equipment to our general practices in Trafford.

“Our practices, which build strong bonds with their communities, are working harder than ever at this time and I know that they really appreciate the offers of support, sometimes even from outside of the borough. It means a lot.”

Dr Omi Narayan, a consultant at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, tweeted in thanks to the school and said: “Flixton Girls’ School, massive thank you for donating protective personal equipments for Manchester University Hospital Trust.”

Just yesterday (Monday April 13), the school supplied science safety masks to the Kershaw’s Hospice charity in Oldham, which looks after elderly people in their own homes and at the hospice.

Ms Hazeldine added: “We are being contacted by ex-pupils and relatives of workers in a variety of care settings so we are now setting up a more formalized structure to be able to help.

“We want to prioritise our immediate community and especially areas such as care homes within the Urmston, Davyhulme Flixton and Stretford area.

“We cannot produce great quantities but we can help those smaller organisations to keep both their workers and their clients safe.”

Other schools in Trafford have also been busy – Ashton on Mersey High School’s Mr Peet and his wife have already made more than 1000 face visors for health workers across the borough.