Hospital trusts are paying the funeral costs of scores of penniless elderly patients who are dying alone in wards.

Figures obtained by The Argus show that the three main hospital trusts in Sussex have spent tens of thousands of pounds between them on welfare funerals in the last year alone.

A charity for the elderly labelled the phenomena Eleanor Rigby funerals after the Beatles track and said it feared the numbers would rise.

Last year staff at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton arranged 31 welfare funerals, a 25% increase on the previous year.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals held eleven welfare funerals in 2010 and St Richard's in Chichester held six.

Conquest Hospital in St Leonards and Eastbourne District General Hospital hosted 30 between them in the last financial year for patients aged between 43 and 93.

Simon Bottery, the director of policy at Independent Age, a charity that provides support for older people on very low incomes, said: “It is terribly sad to hear about the number of welfare funerals taking place.

“Loneliness affects us all, but older people are particularly vulnerable, because they may have lost their circle of friends or their spouse or have family far away with busy and very separate lives.

“This means that many older people are buried each week, sadly unremarked upon and completely alone.

“Given our ageing population, this trend looks likely to increase unless we work together to tackle this endemic.”

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust said that welfare funerals cost around £700 including the cost of a coffin, service and crematorium services.

A spokeswoman said: “It is very rare that there will be a service where no one is there.

“In most cases, it is a matter that the legal executor is not clear but there are still relatives and often we can get these charges back but this happens after the event.”

An East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said the trust was required by law to provide welfare funerals for deceased patients when there is no next of kin to take control of a funeral or if the family cannot afford to pay for a funeral.

A spokesman for Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust said the hospital paid for a small number of funerals where the patient didn't have any relatives and in a smaller percentage of cases where the patient could not afford to pay.

He added that the cost of the service varied between £450 and £750.