Darn good effort
Earlier this year we asked all our knowledgeable knitters to help provide the NHS with as many tiny woolly hats as they could muster to help midwives across the country keep newborn babies out of special care.
The woolly hat care bundle initiative was launched in a bid to cut unnecessary special care baby unit (SCBU) admissions as too many babies were being admitted to SCBU units as a result of becoming cold. Midwives are now trying to ensure that every newborn is given a woolly hat to wear straight after birth.
Hospitals across the country introduced a traffic light-themed system of red, amber and green woolly hats to help ensure that babies receive the correct level of care they need. The hats are colour coded to assist midwives in ensuring that babies and new mothers are best supported in the first few days of life. For example, babies will receive a red hat if they have been born prematurely, amber is for those who have endured a difficult labour, and green is for babies deemed to be at the lowest risk.
We asked all knitters to send their creations to charity and community champion, Tim Hyde at Medway mail centre, and boy, did you deliver! But no-one more so than our champion crocheting colleagues at Stoke MDEC who have so far sent Tim a staggering 82 (and counting) baby hats.
When administrator Elin Henshaw, from Stoke manual data entry centre (MDEC), sent Tim their latest batch of 23 hats, she sent him the below email, which we think perfectly illustrates how rewarding their incredible efforts have been to everyone involved. Thank you, Stoke.
‘Hi Tim, I have just posted another 23 hats to you. The thanks at Stoke MDEC don’t just go to the staff but to colleagues’ mums, sisters and friends too. If people can’t knit or crochet they have bought wool and asked family and friends to help out.
‘The support has been, and still is, fantastic for this. I know it’s helped my mum and I with the grief of losing dad so suddenly. People have said that they have used this as a way to help with various issues such as stress relief. They said they had forgotten how much it helps with this and how they have discovered that knitting/crochet helps them switch off the TV and listen to music while supporting this great cause.’
‘The response has been amazing with maternity units in Manchester and Nottingham receiving supplies and I have more than 300 to hand over next week to the William Harvey hospital in Kent,’ said Tim.
If you would like to show off your knitting prowess and help keep someone’s little one warm, click here to download your baby hat crochet instructions, courtesy of automation engineer Siobhan Burns, from Chelmsford mail centre. Please send your hats to charity and community champion, Tim Hyde, at Medway mail centre at the below address:
Tim Hyde
Medway mail centre
Knight Road
Strood, Kent
ME2 2EE
Click here to download our baby hat posters. Please print them off and display them in your units. Thank you for your help. No baby should be going to special care because they are cold.
