Baroness Ilora Finlay made the demand at a time of escalating alarm at the lack of access to services. Her Bill will require clinical commissioning groups across England to ensure that high-quality, specialist palliative care services are available for everyone who needs them. She said: “This is an urgent healthcare issue, with recent projections [showing] that palliative care needs will rise by 42 per cent in the next 25 years.”

Palliative care teams aim to secure the best possible quality of life for people suffering from advanced illnesses and those who do not have long to live by managing pain and providing for their psychological, social and spiritual needs.

Baroness Finlay, a doctor who is now deputy speaker of the House of Lords, is concerned by “failures in care planning and access to out-of-hours services” and says the standard of care for patients and their families varies greatly across the nation.

She said: “There are an estimated 118,000 people a year in England who would benefit from palliative care but are not receiving it.”

Baroness Finlay argues it would be “totally unacceptable not to provide maternity services” but the country has “people dying with complex needs with no specialist service available in their area”.

[The country has] people dying with complex needs with no specialist service available

Baroness Finlay

Her Bill is intended to help people of all ages, but there is specific concern about the situation facing older people.

Age UK claims that although the 65-plus population accounts for 85 per cent of all deaths, older people are “often least likely to have access to specialist palliative care”.

It states that while between 50 and 70 per cent of people would prefer to die at home, “only 16.7 per cent of deaths in people aged 85-plus occur at home”.

Caroline Abrahams, pictured, charity director at Age UK, said: “Older people must be able to access the support they need at the end of life, both from specialist palliative care teams and from wider health and care services.

“We must all be supported to talk, think about and record our wishes and preferences for our care at the end of life so we can have as good an experience as possible in the last days and weeks.

The Government insists it wants to ensure adults and children can die in the place of their choice, whether that is at home, in a hospice, in a care home or in hospital.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: “The UK is ranked as one of the best countries in the world for palliative care and we are dedicated to improving patient choice and ending variation for everyone.”

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