HEALTH chiefs want to reduce the number of terminally-ill patients who die in Basildon Hospital.

The plan is to boost end-of-life care by creating more hospices and improving home and residential care.

This comes after health bosses admitted some elderly patients had passed away in hospital because there was nowhere else for them to go.

Improvements were called for after last year’s independent health care information provider, Dr Foster, revealed the hospital had one of the highest death rates in the country.

Luenne Featherstone, spokesman for the hospital, said lack of care home spaces were partly to blame.

She believes too many pensioners die in hospital of natural causes when they should have been cared for at home, in a hospice or care home.

She said: “Sadly, many of these patients die while waiting to be transferred to more appropriate care settings.

“This is denying some people the choice of where they want to die.

“We will continue to work very closely with NHS and community services to ensure sufficient hospice, residential and nursing home provision is available to transfer patients sooner.”

Georgia Jerram, a spokesman for South West Essex Primary Care Trust, said the aim was to cut the number of terminally ill patients dying in hospital by 75 per cent over the next five years.

She added: “This will impact on the mortality rate at the hospital, but it is important to stress the main focus of this work is to improve patient experience.”

Mrs Jerram said work had already begun on making this possible.

She explained the trust had carried out a review of all end-of-life services and was now working closely with local hospices, including St Luke’s, to provide an enhanced hospice-at-home scheme, enabling more patients to end their lives at home.

The trust also said it has invested an extra £161,000 into providing 24-hour palliative care, through district nurses, and the hospice-at-home scheme.

Other improvements include giving patients who choose to die at home access to drugs they could previously only get in hospital, when administered by an approriate healthcare professional.