Social enterprise packs organ kits for the NHS

A charity is offering people with learning disabilities and autism the opportunity of paid employment while helping a "vital" service.

Enterprise Packaging is a Bristol-based organisation which packs transplant retrieval kits for the NHS. It is run by the charity, Brandon Trust.

The employees assemble and package the kits before they are shipped to 16 NHS organ retrieval teams around the country.

Employee Becky said: "[It is great] to be able to get paid for the job, and it's good to have a job that helps people who need transplants. It means a lot to us as a team."

Becky has worked for the Brandon Trust for 20 years.

The organisation gives people with learning disabilities paid employment to pack the kits, in a way that may be difficult at most companies, and operates from the Vassall Centre in Fishponds, Bristol.

Marti works a day a week at Enterprise Packaging, and has done so for seven years.

He is a Chelsea football fan, often coming to work in his club jacket.

"I like working with everyone here and packing the kits," he said.

"It's good that I get paid."

Part of the ethos of Enterprise Packaging is that employees work towards taking on more responsibility.

Becky is responsible for ordering the lymph and spleen pots that form part of the kits, and Marti is in charge of performing end of day checks, including making sure machinery is switched off and the shelves are tidy.

Another member of the team performs quality control.

"Confidence increases a hundred-fold for people who come here," said project coordinator, Alex Bird.

"They're not always sure how their abilities might help them, but actually their skills are a real bonus here.

"Their attention to detail and the process driven and repetitiveness of the work really works for them, so they feel proud and like they've achieved something, which is fantastic."

NHS Blood and Transplant's project lead for retrieval and transplant, Cecelia McIntyre, said: "For the national organ retrieval teams around the country, these packs are vital to their work.

"They contain vital components, and make the job so much easier."

But it is perhaps the quality of the team's work which has impressed Ms McIntyre most of all.

"We have a 15 year relationship with Brandon Trust, and in that time, we have never known these packs to be incorrect or damaged," she said.

"That is pretty amazing, really."

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