DOCTORS must offer terminally ill patients the choice of dying at home, it is claimed.

Swindon South MP Julia Drown said health professionals must learn when to tell patients they are "approaching the end of the road" and offer them the chance to return home with their families.

Research by charity Marie Curie Cancer Care discovered 65 per cent of Britons choose to die at home but currently only 25 per cent are able to.

Ms Drown said: "A number of constituents have written to me in support of this issue.

"Lots of people who face death say they would rather die in a place where their family members are and where they are comfortable instead of an institution.

"Unfortunately it is not easy for nurses and doctors to say 'this is the end of the road' to patients. In Britain we are not very good at talking about death.

"There is also the way that our health service has devoted its concentration to acute services rather than community services.

"We need to develop a greater range of community services which would allow care for terminally ill people to return home."

Ms Drown has joined a cross-party campaign of 59 MPs who have signed a parliamentary petition on the issue.

Marie Curie Cancer Care has recently started working with doctors in Lincolnshire to provide an end of life careprogramme, which MPs want rolled out across the UK.

The Early Day Motion reads: "This House believes every terminally ill patient who chooses to die at home should be given the opportunity to do so."