Grieving carer families can stay in UK
FAMILY members of overseas NHS support staff and care workers who have lost relatives to coronavirus can stay in the UK.
A bereavement scheme had previously only applied to certain professions, such as nurses.
Now Home Secretary Priti Patel has extended it to include care workers, NHS cleaners and porters who die on the frontline.
Ms Patel said families will be given indefinite leave to remain in recognition of their loved ones’ “ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of saving the lives of others”.
She said: “When I announced the introduction of the bereavement scheme in April, I said we would continue to work across government to look at ways to offer further support.
Today we are extending the scheme to NHS support staff and social care workers. This will be effective immediately and retrospectively.”
The scheme first launched for nurses and doctors in April.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson yesterday rejected calls to scrap the fees overseas health workers have to pay to use the NHS.
The health immigration surcharge on non-EU migrants is £400 per year and set to rise to £624 in October. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer asked Mr Johnson if he thought it right that
“care workers coming from abroad and working on our front line should have to pay to use the NHS themselves”.
The PM told Sir Keir he had thought about the issue “a great deal” having had his life saved by staff from around the world.
However, he said: “This is a great national service. It needs funding and those contributions actually help us to raise about £900million, and it’s very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources.”
Dame Donna Kinnair, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “The immigration health surcharge is a grossly unfair financial burden on our international workforce. The Government must drop this charge as a matter of urgency.”