Doctors face calls to reduce carbon footprints by promoting remote appointments and beware of people suffering from "eco-distress".

New guidance - issued by the Royal College of Physicians - urges doctors to use their position as a "trusted member of the community" to warn about climate change, health chiefs have said.

The advice tells medical professionals to raise the topic during consultations and "repeat it often".

Other recommendations include being aware of "eco-distress" - the name for anxiety and depression caused by climate change.

The RCP says its members should promote remote appointments to slash environmentally damaging travel.

The 11-page document adds that they could work from home on days they are not delivering clinical care.

The guidance has been blasted online with some suggesting that the "green toolkit" could cause missed diagnoses.

Writing on forum, Pulse - a website for GPs to share their views - one user described it as "virtue signalling" with "zero danger of any blame for the stuff that might be missed".

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Another wrote: "Is this some sort of parody?"

Deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice also slammed the advice as "utterly absurd".

On social media, he said: "Now doctors told to lecture us on climate change. Utterly absurd.

"Not surprising health outcomes declining in UK if medics wasting time on non medical stuff."

The document suggests that medics should "talk about the health benefits of climate action" and to maintain a "simple" message.

Doctors are also urged to "look for opportunities" to send emails or texts instead of letters to "reduce road transportation-related pollution, as well as energy use and printing costs".

Climate change is described as "one of the biggest threats to human health" and insists that it will "undoubtedly cause significant additional pressure for the NHS".

An NHS England spokesperson said: "NHS staff must always put patients' needs first - green solutions should be adopted only when it is clinically appropriate and could save taxpayers' money.

"Decarbonising the public sector, through reducing energy costs and improving efficiency, offers a huge opportunity for growth at a comparatively low cost to the taxpayer, allowing savings to be delivered to the frontline."