An employee at Macclesfield Hospital is taking social media by storm after coming up with a bright idea to cheer up her work colleagues.

Lucie Orme is a Ward based pharmacy technician, who works around all the wards at the hospital. She came up with the idea of wearing her bright lipstick under her mask to cheer herself up, and her hashtag #partylipfriday has now spread across social media.

Lucie said: "The idea is that you choose a lipstick that you would usually wear on a night out, apply and create your party lip and don your mask – then you can enjoy the fun of knowing you have bright lips.

"It's just something that's started naturally when I was getting ready for work and saw my bright lipsticks, I thought it would make me feel better to wear one. Then I told a couple of colleagues about it and they joined in."

She added: "The following week I was helping a colleague who was having a challenging day and I showed her my lips and it really made her smile. That's when I thought, I've really made someone smile today through such a simple thing."

Lucie sent a message to millions of NHS staff on Instagram to ask them to repost the page and her new hashtag to see if anyone else would join her. "Lots of people started to follow suit."

"It's really hard to tell if someone is having a nice day so I hope this will help spread some happiness for all key workers. It's nice that people are joining it with it," Lucie said.

A spokesperson from the trust said: "Despite the challenging circumstances it's fantastic to see our staff coming up with ways to boost their wellbeing and put a smile on each other's faces."