The Sainsbury's supermarket in Frome is to make some significant changes to how the store is organised and to offer more priority on line to vulnerable customers.

In a letter sent out this evening (March 25) the CEO also announced that staff will be better protected and the numbers of customers in their stores, along with what they can buy, is changing again.

The changes outlined include:

Limiting the number of shoppers in store at any time.

Installing queuing outside the store with a two metre space between customers.

All the supermarkets have been coming into increasing criticism for not doing enough to protect Sainsbury's staff. So measures for them include:

Reducing the number of checkouts open in supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol filling stations to help colleagues keep a safe distance from each other.

Introducing safety screens at every manned checkout.

The supermarket says it has already booked in on line shopping delivery slots for 115,000 elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers.

But the company will be getting the government database to tell them which which people in England the government considers to be most vulnerable.

In a letter to staff and customers the CEO Mike Coupe said: " Where these people are already registered with us, we will start to write to them next week to offer them a delivery slot."

He added: " I apologise to our regular online customers, who I know are feeling very frustrated at not being able to book slots. Please bear with us and I hope you can understand why we feel the need to prioritise elderly and vulnerable customers at the moment."

He revealed that Sainsbury's customer's care line has been inundated with requests from elderly and vulnerable customers – with one year's worth of contacts in two weeks.