Vodafone is to automatically upgrade pay monthly customers who are NHS staff to provide them with 30 days of free unlimited mobile data.

It said those who qualify will receive a text informing them of the upgrade from April 6.

Any customers flagged in the company’s systems as working for the NHS will be upgraded, the mobile operator confirmed.

The scheme is an extension of an existing Vodafone initiative, which offers customers registered as the most vulnerable free data as part of the company’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The update will also allow both NHS staff and vulnerable people not already flagged on Vodafone’s system to register themselves in the VeryMe section of the operator’s official app and receive the free data offer.

We are proactively upgrading all private customers who are registered with us as working for the NHS to this 30-day unlimited free data offer

Vodafone said it has more than 100,000 customers in its system identified as NHS staff because they are already using the NHS discount scheme, which requires a valid NHS email to sign up.

The operator added it also had a number of people marked in its system as vulnerable because of a range of conditions, including disabilities and mental health issues, which customers told the firm about when taking out contracts.

Vodafone said the new, automatic upgrading of relevant customers is designed to provide those who may not have time to take advantage of the wider offer with access to more data.

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK chief executive said: “Last week, we announced we were giving 30 days of unlimited free data to our most vulnerable customers and the first 500,000 customers to sign up.

“We said we would be monitoring the feasibility of opening this up to even more customers and if we could give more capacity, we would.

“So today, we are proactively upgrading all private customers who are registered with us as working for the NHS to this 30-day unlimited free data offer.”