The grocer said that from today it would be trebling its Waitrose & Partners rapid delivery service to give over 2.5 million households the option to use the service to get the food and essentials they need.

From the end of next week, Waitrose said it would ensure that 40% of the new rapid delivery slots would be earmarked for older and vulnerable customers and would be contacting those people registered as such with the government to inform them of priority access.

The service, which enables customers to order up to 25 grocery items within two hours or less on the same day, has been trialled across eight of Waitrose’s London stores, as well as in Hove, East Sussex, but has today been expanded to an additional 20 stores across London.