Agony aunt, writer and broadcaster Claire Rayner has died at the age of 79, her family have said.

The patients' rights campaigner, who died on Monday, knew her death was imminent over the weekend and told her relatives she wanted her last words to be: "Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him."

Des Rayner, her husband of 53 years, said: "I have lost my best friend and my soulmate. I am immensely proud of her."

She never recovered from emergency intestinal surgery she had in May this year and died in hospital near her home in Harrow, north-west London.

Rayner, also survived by children Amanda, Adam and Jay, and her four grandchildren, had started her career in the National Health Service working as a nurse.

Her husband, who was also her agent and manager, paid tribute to her, saying: "Through her work she helped hundreds of thousands of people and doubtless, by talking frankly about the importance of safe sex in the 80s when almost nobody else would discuss it, helped to save thousands of lives.

"Through her own approach to life she enabled people to talk about their problems in a way that was unique.

"Right up until her death she was being consulted by both politicians and the medical profession about the best way to provide the health services the nation deserved and nothing mattered to her more than that. Her death leaves a vacancy which will not be filled."