The College wants to ensure that employers ‘get the basics right' to improve healthcare staff wellbeing to retain and attract staff.

This includes providing adequate facilities for rest (eg after night shifts), spaces to carry out non-clinical work and easily accessible hot food and drink so healthcare staff can keep refreshed during their shifts, including nightshifts, when hot meals are harder to source in hospitals.

In addition, the College urged investment in the social care workforce to ensure that care packages and rehabilitation services are quickly available for people awaiting hospital discharge.

The College also urged the next government to:

•         follow through on proposed new legislation making it an offence for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 to be sold tobacco products
•         introduce a sugar and salt reformulation tax to change the fiscal incentives in the food system to better support healthy diets
•         extend the ‘sugar tax' to other products high in sugar, including sugary fruit juices, milkshakes and coffee chain frappé drinks, which in many instances contain ‘hidden' sugar
•         legislate to restrict advertising on TV and online for products high in fat, salt or sugar, which encourage people to consume ‘unhealthy' food and drink
•         introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol as already adopted in Scotland and Wales
•         restrict the advertising and marketing of alcohol products, as recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Professor Andrew Elder, president of The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, said: ‘The College supports the founding principles of the NHS but we're clear that in order to provide services that are free at the point of use, all political parties must be honest with people about the financial pressures that affect health service sustainability.

‘Additional investment in the NHS, including medical staff, is desirable and necessary. But we're also calling for greater investment in the social care workforce. This is vital to ensure that care packages and rehabilitation services are quickly available for people awaiting hospital discharge. More needs to be done to prevent unnecessary hospitalisation and to get people home from hospital as soon as they are able.'