A sample kit for an overseas hospital pilot

No hospital should place a large uniform order from photographs. Fabric has a weight, a hand feel and a behaviour under a tap that no image conveys. That is why we send a sample kit before a pilot.

The kit contains four things.

Fabric swatches in the colours under consideration, cut large enough to hold against a wall in the actual ward lighting. Small squares are useless for this. You need enough surface to judge.

One finished garment in the proposed style, in the size closest to the median of your staff. Not a sample stitched from scrap, an actual production piece, so the seams and the finishing are what you will receive.

A colour card showing the full range, so the hospital can see whether the navy it chose sits well next to the ceil blue of another department.

A size chart with body measurements rather than garment measurements, so the pilot group can be measured against something meaningful.

The kit is not free, and that is deliberate. A free sample is a marketing cost that gets recovered somewhere. A paid kit that is credited against the first order means both sides are serious.

What the hospital should do with it is the important part. Wash the garment three times before judging. Wear it for a shift. Hold the swatch against the ward wall at two in the afternoon and again at night under the ward lights.

A pilot of twenty sets after that tells you more than a catalogue ever will, and it costs a fraction of a full rollout.