NHS, care home and hospice staff are benefiting from thousands of deliveries of essential items thanks to Sarah, Duchess of York’s new international charity.

Sarah’s Trust aims to bring philanthropic organisations and individuals together with charities who can demonstrate donations will be targeted where they are needed most.

The duchess said: “We will focus on a whole range of causes, all across the world, but at this terrible time it’s right that our first projects should be to help to contend with the impact of coronavirus both at home and abroad.

“It has been humbling to be able to see just a little bit of the incredible work being done by our NHS and other health workers and I’m proud that, working with my daughters and new colleagues at Sarah’s Trust, we’ve been able to make life a little easier for some of them.

“I’m also pleased that we’ve been able to support vulnerable children in Ghana, building on the sort of charity work I’ve been involved in for many years now.”

The trust’s initial efforts are focused on aiding frontline workers in the coronavirus outbreak by connecting suppliers of both essential and luxury goods to hospitals, care communities and hospices.

More than 80 locations – from hospitals in London to Edinburgh and GP centres and schools – have so far been reached with over 150,000 individual deliveries.

Parcels have included meals and snacks, fresh fruit and hygiene items including masks, scrubs and toiletries.

A spokesman for the duchess said that as well as connecting donors with health organisations, the duchess and her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, have personally funded and donated hundreds of items.

Sarah’s Trust has also been providing lifesaving medication, food supplies and washing facilities in rural areas of Ghana.

In the UK, the trust has been working with the organisation Under One Sky and Noah Enterprise to deliver 500 KipBags, which contain sleeping bags and toiletries, to homeless people sleeping rough in London and Luton.

Sarah Wade, chief executive of Sarah’s Trust, said: “We are very excited to be launching this new charitable initiative. The duchess’s passion for these causes and people is cemented at the very core of Sarah’s Trust.

“Her energy and charitable heart will enable Sarah’s Trust to provide vital support to the world’s most forgotten, and to broaden her support to more charities working in the field.”