A grieving eight-year-old girl has created a poster to thank the NHS staff who tried to save her father from coronavirus.

Megan White, from Kent, last saw her father Dave when he was taken to hospital by ambulance on Monday March 30.

He died the following day, with the family told by telephone a short while after.

They were unable to see him while he was in hospital and now have to isolate for two weeks themselves, due to infection risks.

A few days after her father died, Megan wanted to pay tribute to the NHS staff who tried to save him.

She painted a poster reading “I love the NHS”, which was shared on the hospital’s Facebook page.

Claire White, 42, told the PA news agency: “I asked her why she had written that and she told me she did it because the NHS had tried to help her daddy. I just burst into tears.

“No one had asked her to do that, she did it of her own accord.

“She has a very strong head on her and she has helped me a lot, she’s a very resilient little girl.”

Mrs White criticised “selfish” sunbathers for flouting social distancing rules after losing her childhood sweetheart to the deadly virus.

She said: “I would never wish what I had to go through on anybody.

“Please, I will beg if you want me to beg, I just want everyone to stay at home so this dreadful virus goes away and we can try and return to some normality.

“The pictures on Saturday of people in parks and on Brighton sea front, thinking it was a bank holiday. I’d love to be able to do that, but I can’t because the door is locked.

“You go on all the local Facebook groups and they are all moaning because the supermarket queues are going all around the car park, and you just think, there is a reason for that.”

The couple met at school when she was 15 and he was 16. Mr White was classed as a key worker and had continued working as a supermarket store manager during the coronavirus pandemic.

He worked long hours at the beginning of the outbreak, as panic buyers cleared the shelves of essential items.