Professor Katherine Clark, director and area director of palliative care services at the Calvary Mater Newcastle, said 50 per cent of Australians died in hospital - one of the highest rates in the world.

That number is even higher in the Hunter New England area, which encompasses Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.

"People are living longer with incurable illnesses, and often the last 12 months of their life are complicated," she said.

"Australian families are decreasing in size. Many Australian women are choosing not to have families. There is no capacity for them [terminal relatives] to be cared for at home [in their last few months], and people choose to die in hospital."

Professor Clark spoke at the Cancer Council Hunter Region's Research By the Beach at Cooks Hill Surf Club on November 14.

She said a new workforce of people would be needed if more people decided to die outside the hospital system.

Professor Clark said it didn't matter if a person was in palliative care by choice or necessity - the most important issue to consider was their safety.

There were two major issues to consider in someone's life, she said, that we enter this world safely, and exit the world safely as well.

The medical world had achieved many incredible things when it came to helping newborns. Now it was time to start focusing on how people exited the world, she said.