Ten health and care workers died of Covid-19 in the first quarter of 2022.
Health unions are urging ministers to extend a Covid-19 life assurance payment for health and care workers.
The NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance scheme, which entitles families of nursing staff and others who die from COVID-19 to financial support, ended in England on 31 March 2022.
Under the scheme, the families of health and social care workers would be given financial support worth £60,000 to assist with funeral costs and to help alleviate some of the financial burdens the death of a family member brings.
Despite ten health and care workers dying in the first quarter of the year, the government ended the scheme on 31 March.
With Covid-19 cases surging following the lifting of restrictions, unions say now is not the time for the scheme to be scrapped.
Staff should be afforded the same respect.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has questioned why staff dying now should be afforded less respect than those who died previously.
In a letter to Sajid Javid, RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen says: “Hundreds of health and care staff have lost their life to COVID-19 which they contracted as part of their vital work on the frontline during the pandemic.
“The overriding principle must be that no member of nursing staff who loses their life this year should be afforded any less respect and family support than one who died in 2020 or 2021.
“The pandemic is far from over. Now is not the right time to remove the reassurance that if the worst were to happen to nursing staff delivering frontline care, their loved ones would be compensated.
“I urge you to delay the end of the scheme until a time when nursing staff and all health and care workers are assured that their lives are not at such risk from the pandemic.”
