Tony Iommi has raised £19,000 for the NHS by auctioning off his prized possessions.

Among the lot was one of the Black Sabbath guitarist's left-handed guitars, which sold for £11,300, and other items included a signed DVD box set, CDs and vinyls, which raked in just under £8,000.

All of the money made has been donated to the University Hospitals Birmingham to help support the trust through the coronavirus pandemic.

The trust's head of fundraising, Justine Davy, has said they are ever ''grateful'' to the 'Paranoid' hitmaker for his donation.

She said: ''The money raised will help us to support our NHS superheroes who are working tirelessly to provide care to our patients.''

Iommi - who is a patron of the specialist cancer ward at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham - said of Covid-19: ''It's horrible but in some ways it's bringing people together more and realising what we do have in this country with the NHS and the great things they do.''

The 72-year-old rocker recently revealed he has been in constant contact with his former bandmate Ozzy Osbourne - who recently revealed he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease - during the lockdown.

He said: ''I'm even in touch with Ozzy every day as he gets over his own health problems in LA.''

Iommi - who last shared a stage with the heavy metal group's 71-year-old frontman at their final gig at Birmingham's Genting Arena in 2017 - also revealed how he's been spending his time in lockdown, and compared it to being on tour without getting to perform.

He said: ''I've washed the car, cleaned the garage out, done all those little jobs that you realise needed doing, just like everyone else.

''It's a bit like being on tour, without getting out to play. You're stuck in the room each night.''