THE owners of a trio of North Hampshire salons have donated more than a thousand items to frontline NHS workers tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Tim Ha, owner of Citrine’ Spa – which has branches in Andover and Basingstoke – and his brother Eric, who runs Style Nails, presented the supplies to representatives from various hospitals in the local area on Tuesday.

The donation included 85 tubes of hand sanitiser, 80 face masks, 650 surgical masks, 25 containers of hand wash and 650 sets of medical gloves.

Tim said: “I read an article on Daily Mail a week ago, they said NHS staff are working in the frontline but they aren’t getting proper protection as many hospitals are already low on masks, gloves, hand gels.

“So, we decided to donate all the items we have.”

Tim and his brother’s salons have been closed since Sunday. But they still have a large backlog of supplies that were ordered months previously.

Those supplies are now hard to come by for others, including key NHS staff, and so the siblings decided to give what they could to those still working on the frontline.

Tim shared the news on social media and was overwhelmed by the response from customers.

“We’ve have received a lot of supports from the community,” he said, “many of them say ‘thank you’ or ‘well done’.

“One of our neighbours messaged us that the post made her cry and she would also give away what she have to help people.”

The items were donated to Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, Basingstoke Community Mental Health Centre, Andover War Memorial Hospital and Wiltshire Health and Care.

A letter from Alex Whitfield, chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, read: “Thank you very much for your donations of personal protective equipment to our Andover and Basingstoke hospitals.

“Your generous and thoughtful act is most kind and very much appreciated.

“All such donations are boosting staff morale and will be put to good use.

“Again, thank you so much from all of us here at Hampshire Hospitals.”