Hospital visiting hours should be extended to allow families more involvement in patient care.

That's according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), those with nurse manager jobs may be interested to know, claiming there were "real benefits" when families members contributed.

However, the body was careful to point out that families would not be forced into helping, nor would they be asked to perform tasks that nurses were employed to carry out.

RCN head, Peter Carter explained to BBC News: "What we would like to see is flexibility to allow relatives to help make patients comfortable, such as extending visiting times.

"We know from areas such as children's care that having familiar people involved at mealtimes for example can make hospital stays in particular less stressful for all concerned."

Dr Carter highlighted with fact that on some wards, there were too few nurses to feed patients or take them to the toilet, but that extended visiting hours would serve as "focused dedicated time." 

He wants the NHS to find ways to encourage families to help out and extending restrictive visiting hours is one possible solution.

The suggestion, while supported by the Royal College of GPs, has been slammed by other groups. Ros Altman of SAGA called it "astonishing."

"If patients are in hospital then it is hospital staff who surely have a duty of care to look after patients' needs such as feeding them and ensuring they are clean, washed and dry," she told the Mail Online.