DOCTORS in South East Cornwall have made a desparate plea to the public for hand sanitiser – and for help to create temporary consulting rooms.

The East Cornwall Primary Care Network covers nine GP practices and has more than 150,000 patients on its books. Its practices include Liskeard’s Oak Tree and Rosedean Surgeries, Old Bridge Surgery in Looe, Tamar Valley Health, the Rame Group Practice and Saltash Health Centre.

’Our surgeries have a desparate shortage of hand sanitiser,’ said a spokesperson.

’If you have any spare, even single bottles, or know of larger quantities for sale, please contact us as a matter of urgency.’

The practices also have a pressing need to create temporary consultation rooms in order to help those with suspected coronavirus symptoms without putting other patients at risk.

’To achieve this we are looking for any companies or individuals that may have any large trailers, vans, shipping containers or similar sized temporary structures that we can temporarily convert to on-site consultation rooms,’ the spokesperson said.

’We do realise the nature and size of these requests and we hope that by reaching out to the wider public we may be able to continue to provide our communities the very best quality of care, whilst keeping our staff safe.

’Even if people can’t help directly, we hope they will share the message widely on social media.’

On Sunday, the Government pledged to deliver extra supplies of gloves, masks, gowns and other protective equipment to healthcare providers across the country.

Cornwall Council has asked the Government to speed up the delivery of PPE to the county’s frontline workers – and the local authority has also appealed to businesses and individuals that might have stocks of such supplies to pass them on.