Will Mellor believes NHS staff should be "the highest paid people in the country".

Will Mellor in Corrie

Will Mellor in Corrie

The 'Coronation Street' star was left fuming with the government's proposed NHS pay rise of just one per cent this year - which Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who caught coronavirus in 2020, said was "as much as we can" - as he thinks the health service's staff should receive a bigger boost after their courageous work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He said: "All of us have needed the NHS at some point.

"Imagine this country without it. Where we would be now? I wasn’t happy at all with that one per cent rise they got. It p***** me off.

"They should be the highest paid people in the country.

"They saved his life. We spend billions and billions on track and trace and this and that, that don’t work, but we can only afford a one per cent pay rise for the NHS who saved lives and put their own lives at risk when this country was on its back."

As well as starring in 'Corrie', Will has recorded a new version of 1998 Fat Les classic 'Vindaloo', alongside stars such as Paddy McGuinness and Danny Dyer, to encourage the nation to get behind England during Euro 2020.

And the cobbles actor believes his father Bill - who died from cancer in April last year - would be "really proud" of him for 'Vindaloo Two'.

Will - who plays drug lord Harvey Gaskell in the ITV soap - added to the Daily Mirror newspaper: "He’d be really proud of me doing this, and getting behind it and getting his mates to sing it down the pub."