A Syrian refugee risking his life in the fight against coronavirus as a hospital cleaner has won the right for his family to be granted indefinite leave to remain were he to die on the frontline.

Hassan Akkad initially said he felt ‘betrayed’ and ‘stabbed in the back’ at discovering the Home Office scheme, introduced last month, offered security to the relatives of foreign national NHS staff but excluded cleaners, porters and social care workers.

His emotional appeal got more than one million views on Twitter.

Home Secretary Priti Patel later announced an extension to the scheme to include low paid workers.

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Mr Akkad, a Bafta-winning filmmaker, worked as a teacher in Syria. He later fled the country after being imprisoned and tortured for joining protests against the regime.

The 32-year-old applied to become a cleaner at Whipps Cross hospital in east London as soon as the illness hit the UK.

He said he wanted to spend his time disinfecting Covid-19 wards as his way of giving back to Britain during the crisis and supporting heroic frontline workers.

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In his video to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he said he was appalled to find out non-medical staff were excluded from the scheme.

He said: ‘I’ve been really enjoying the clapping you and your fellow ministers do every week — today, however, I felt betrayed, stabbed in the back.

‘If I die fighting coronavirus, my partner isn’t allowed indefinite leave to remain — this is your way of saying thank you to us.

‘I’m sending you this message hoping you will reconsider because I did see a humble Boris after you were discharged from hospital, I saw a different Boris.

‘Us migrants are on the front line doing this very demanding job to help this nation overcome this pandemic and the least you can do if we die is give our families indefinite leave to remain.’

Ms Patel later announced last night: ‘Every death in this crisis is a tragedy, and sadly some NHS support staff and social care workers have made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of saving the lives of others.

‘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. We want to ensure families have the support they need and so this will be effective immediately and retrospectively.’

Labour’s Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said porters, cleaners and carers ‘should never have been excluded from the scheme in the first place’.

He also urged the government to also make NHS and care staff exempt from paying to use the health service.

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