The Salvation Army is distributing 700,000 items to care homes, supported homeless housing and safe houses for victims of modern slavery.

£230,000-worth of PPE has been funded by the Daily Mail and its partners, with Age UK among the other charities benefiting from the donation.

The bulk delivery include masks and aprons, and is being distributed with the help of Mail Force.

Malcolm Page, assistant director of homelessness services at The Salvation Army said: "This generous donation will save lives and money and we are very grateful to Mail Force.

"We are currently spending around £24,000 per week on PPE to keep our staff and vulnerable service users safe.

"Having such a big donation means we can re-channel some of that money to stocking up food banks, running our debt advice line and helping victims of modern slavery.

"The Salvation Army has been at the frontline of the coronavirus response from the beginning. Whether delivering food parcels to those who couldn't leave the house to helping homeless people to self-isolate. We are committed to being there for the most vulnerable and that means doing all we can to keep our service users and staff safe and using our community networks to get PPE out to other organisations too.

"The Salvation Army is uniquely placed with its network of sites in communities across the country coupled with a 'can do' mentality to store and organise the onward distribution of the PPE supplies."