A spokesperson from Sainsbury's has confirmed to Nub News that their special dedicated early shopping time WILL be also exclusively open to care workers.

The supermarket announced earlier that it would open from 7:30am -8am, Monday to Saturday across all of the UK for NHS health workers.

But there was some confusion whether this would include those doing care work.

The company confirmed today (March 24) that it will also serve social care workers.

The spokesperson added: " It would be appreciated if they could bring along a form of ID / pass."

However the Iceland supermarket chain, which was the first UK supermarket to introduce priority shopping for the elderly, will not be including care workers in their new policy to offer their LAST hour of trading to NHS workers.

A spokesman said: "We've had a fantastic response to our priority hours for the elderly and the vulnerable and so we are now offering shopping times exclusively for NHS staff.

"We totally understand the need to look after social care workers at this time, and have a huge amount of respect and gratitude for what they are doing. But there are limits to what we can do as a relatively small supermarket at this time of exceptional demand, bearing in mind that the UK has 1.1 million workers in the NHS and a further 1.6 million employed in social care. Hence we have had to take the decision to prioritise only NHS staff and the elderly and the vulnerable at this time, but we will continue to look for ways to help others."

NHS staff will need to bring photo ID to shop during the hours and Iceland will only accept card payments.

Iceland (Monday – Saturday)

First hour of trading – Priority hours for elderly and vulnerable people

Final hour of trading - NHS staff only, ID must be shown.

Lidl centrally said: "This isn't something we have in place, however we are continuing to explore all opportunities to best support the most vulnerable in our communities and those that care for them."

M&S said that they too are continuing only to treat official NHS to specified time slots - with a request that priority is given on the first hour of trading on Tuesdays and Fridays " for NHS and Emergency workers

They currently offer ".