A project that will give terminally ill patients the choice of dying at home instead of in a hospice will start this autumn.

The £680,000 three-year scheme will be run by the Martlets Hospice in Hove.

It aims to provide specialist nursing care and support for patients who are in the last stages of their illness and want to stay at home.

The nursing and medical care will be the same as at the hospice for those needing specialist treatment.

Funding has come from the Government's New Opportunity Fund, Brighton and Hove Primary Care Group and a private trust donation.

The service is an extension of the hospice and will work closely with existing services, such as bereavement counselling.

Hospice chief executive, Caroline Lower, said she was pleased the new system was finally going ahead.

She said: "The number of people who prefer the idea of staying at home for specialised treatment has been increasing and it will be good to be able to give people what they want."

There are currently 18 beds at the hospice and demand is consistently high with a waiting list of between six to eight patients.

The hospice board considered expanding but this would have been too expensive.

It felt it was not the right way to progress as the national ethos on cancer treatment was turning towards community and primary care.

The hospice has now advertised for a co-ordinator to develop the project.

About nine extra nursing posts will be created.

There will be a strict referral criteria for patients using the project just as there is for those who attend the main hospice in Wayfield Avenue.

The system could mean the hospice treating up to an extra 150 patients a year in the Brighton and Hove area.

Mrs Lower said: "This is a way of extending the arm of the hospice to provide extra specialist care to support the work done by district nurses and Macmillan nurses.

"We intend people to be put on to the service for five days at a time after which they will be assessed.

"If they are stabilising they will go back to the treatment they were receiving from their carer or district nurse but if they continue to be very poorly, they will stay with the specialist staff we will provide.

"This is new ground for us although the system has been introduced at other hospices around the country.

"It will be open to adaptation and review as we go along."

The new system is expected to start in October.