Healthcare professionals have called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to honour his pledges to invest in the health and social care sector in the wake of the Conservatives’ convincing election victory.

As 109 new Tory MPs head to Westminster this week giving the party an overall majority of 80 seats in the House of Common, health leaders have warned the new government that its election promises must be honoured.

Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “The prime minister must remember that the government’s new mandate was secured on the back of health and care pledges over which we will hold them to account.

“Nursing cannot afford any more piecemeal workforce planning, nor underfunding and working conditions that both put off new recruits and cause experienced nurses to leave the profession they love. Nurses were yet again voted the most trusted profession in the UK last month – and the public wants action to address shortages.”

Dame Donna called for nurses to be at the “heart of the debate” over health and social care reform, adding: “Any attempts to row back from what patients need will be met with short shrift from the nurses who serve them. Extensive expert research shows that registered nurses are the key to patient safety, and it needs to be clear in law who in government and in the system is responsible for ensuring there are sufficient numbers of nurses to meet patients’ needs,” adding that nurse training must be funded “immediately”.

“The promised student financial support must be released immediately, and the government must use its first budget to invest at least an extra £1 billion a year in funding for both tuition fees and maintenance grants in England to attract the future nursing staff desperately needed.”

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, council chair at the British Medical Association, said the government must “act immediately” to address “substandard” care in the health service and called on ministers to provide an extra 10,000 NHS beds in England.

He said: “For years, the NHS has been underfunded, leading to substandard access to care and a desperately overstretched workforce being pushed to the brink. We’re concerned the Conservative commitment falls short of what we’ve asked for to the tune of £6.2 billion per year by 2023/241

“The BMA believes the NHS needs an additional 10,000 hospital beds in England alone – we have the second-lowest number of acute beds compared with populations in Europe – and without this additional funding, patients will be let down by the services they and their families depend on.”

Performance figures

Meanwhile, responding to the latest NHS England hospital performance figures released in the wake of last Friday’s election result, Richard Murray, chief executive of The King’s Fund said they revealed an “urgent need” for the government to act on its promises.

“These sobering figures show the urgent need for the new Conservative government to make good on its promises to focus on our ailing health and care services,” he said.

“National waiting time standards enshrined in the NHS Constitution have now been routinely missed for several years. In November, just seven out of 10 patients attending major accident and emergency departments were seen within the four-hour waiting time target, the worst performance since these records began.

“The new government made a series of promises to invest in NHS buildings and equipment, recruit and retain more staff and develop a plan for reforming social care. These performance figures underline just how urgently the new government needs to act on these pledges.”