Outraged age care campaigners have condemned a nursing leader who suggested relatives go into hospitals and help NHS professionals look after elderly loved  ones as 'shameful'.

Dr Peter Carter, head of the royal college of nursing, said families should be encouraged to assist patients during mealtimes and take them to the toilet. He warned that on some wards there were too few nurses to help all frail patients with the tasks and called on relatives to help instead.

But his comments were blasted as 'crazy and unreasonable' by campaigners who said he was side-lining care for the elderly generation.

Dot Gibson, general secretary of the national pensioners’ convention, said: 'It is both shocking and depressing at the same time that the head of one of our nursing professional bodies is basically saying that the profession is incapable of looking after elderly patients.

'He doesn’t say anything about relatives going in and looking after younger patients. I don’t know why older patients are more demanding to look after.

'Older people are the biggest users of the NHS but they were also the generation who helped build it in 1948 and have paid for it in taxes ever since.

'They went out and fought in World War two, came back and built the welfare state. It is hardly like they are getting something for nothing.

'They have given to society for all of these years and now it is not unreasonable to ask people to take care of them. It is shameful to make that suggestion.'

Dr Carter asked the royal college of Nursing for solutions to elderly care after it emerged the average ward has just one nurse for 11 patients. Nurses on elderly wards look after an average of three more patients than those on children’s ward.

He said: 'If someone is coming in and sitting with their loved one, they are going to have focused, dedicated time.

'You get this business of wards, very, very busy people, patients dying to go to the loo, elderly patients wetting themselves, then they lie there feeling embarrassed - it is about helping Gran get out and go to the loo.

'The NHS is just not going to deal with it. Neither are social services. You have got to get maximum family involvement.

‘Services need to gear up’

'The services need to gear themselves up to make people aware: you are very welcome to come in and look after mum, dad, husband and wife.' Dr Carter also called for visiting hours to be extended in order to give relatives the opportunity to help feed and look after their loved ones.

Currently, many hospitals have ‘protective mealtimes’ which ban visitors coming to the ward while food is being served in case it distracts patients from eating.

Michelle Mitchell, charity director of Age UK, added: 'older people often have complicated and multiple needs that need to be met by an experienced person.

'We urgently need to review how we provide care for our older population in hospital.

'To suggest that this could be even partly passed onto a relative is an entirely inappropriate response. Essential care is a fundamental part of nursing.

'There is a serious problem if people are now saying the NHS can’t provide it.'

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: 'Yet again we have another initiative which moves the responsibility for patient care from nurses to someone else. 

'Why are we asking families to help ensure a patient is fed?  This is part of the basic job description for being a nurse. 

'What if you are a patient who has no family or few visitors - are you expected to fend for yourself at mealtimes? 

'And what if the patient’s family happens to miss a visit - does that mean it will be acceptable for a patient to miss a meal? 

'It is again, the elderly and the vulnerable that will suffer. 

'It is shameful on those who are working in a caring profession that the elderly are not given the priority they so desperately need and are entitled to.'