Terminally ill cancer patients will be able to choose to die with dignity at home.

A new nurse is being enlisted to care for people who want to spend their last days in familiar surroundings, rather than in a hospital bed.

Oxford City Primary Care Group has won £130,000 of Lottery funding for the service which is aimed at helping patients from the city's poorer areas and ethnic minority groups.

Research has shown that people on low incomes, who have terminal illness, are less likely to have the support they need to be able to stay at home in their final days.

PCG chief executive Jonathan Horbury said: "Research we have carried out suggests that people in poorer communities with less developed care services are more likely to die in hospital, but may not actually want to.

"We want to support people to let them die at home. It is certainly the view of community nurses that many people feel strongly that they want to die at home. Oxford has been chosen because of the significant areas of deprivation in the city."

The scheme, due to start in the next few months, has been funded with National Opportunities Fund cash which will be spent over the next three years.

At first, it will centre around cancer victims, but will in time be extended to help people dying from other illnesses.

The new nurse will work with the established Intensive Community Support Service a team of care workers who visit patients at their homes.

Working closely with other organisations like Macmillan Nurses and Social Services, the new nurse will be able to offer patients clinical care and social support.

Mr Horbury said: "We are delighted to have money for this project. It is a very practical addition to what we are already doing with the ICSS."