Macmillan Cancer Support has called on the Government to make social care free for everyone at the end of their lives.
The cancer charity said that almost three quarters of cancer patients in England who die in hospital beds wanted to die at home, an estimated 36,000 people each year.
In addition, a recent national survey of bereaved relatives and carers found care in hospitals was often subpar to the care received at home.
Of those who died at home, 63% rated the overall quality of care received as excellent or outstanding, compared to only 37% of those who died in hospitals.
However two years after the Palliative Care Funding Review (PCFR) recommended that social care should be free for those at the end of life, thousands of cancer patients are still dying on a hospital ward.
Macmillan has called on the Government to make social care free for everyone in the last weeks of life before the end of this Parliament in 2015.
Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "Thousands of people with terminal cancer are being left to die in hospital beds against their wishes.
'If the Government wants the NHS to deliver world-class care at the end of life in the UK, it needs to start by giving people a real choice about where they die.'
