Patients who die in hospital are treated with less dignity and respect than those who die in hospices, especially the older people, according to the first official government survey to probe the quality of care people receive at the end of life.

The survey, which was commissioned by the Department of Health and will be repeated annually, found that wide discrepancies exist in the quality of care provided to people in the last three months of their life depending on their age, cause of death and place of death.

For the National Bereavement Survey 2011 the Office of National Statistics surveyed more than 48 000 bereaved people between …