Eric Dane was "starting to lose his ability to speak" before his death

Speaking to Chris Evans on Virgin Radio, Patrick said: "I feel really so sad for his children.

"I was corresponding with him, we were texting, so I spoke to him about a week ago and some friends of ours went in to see him and he was really starting to lose his ability to speak.

"He was bedridden and it was very hard for him to swallow, so the quality of his life was deteriorating so rapidly.

"He was the funniest man - he was such a joy to work with and I want to just remember him in that spirit because any time he was on set, he brought so much fun to it.

"He had a great sense of humour. He was easy to work with, we got along instantly,. First scene was him, you know, in all his glory, coming out of the bathroom with the towel on looking amazing, making you feel completely out of shape and insignificant."

Patrick insisted there was "never really any competition" between himself and Eric on the set of Grey's Anatomy because they "hit it off" from the beginning.

He said: "There was just this wonderful mutual respect. He's wickedly intelligent and I'm always going to remember those moments of fun that we had together and celebrate the joy that he did bring to people's lives and the real loss is for us who don't have them anymore."

The 60-year-old star thinks Eric's health issues and subsequent death can teach people what matters in life.

He said: "He did an incredible job at bringing awareness to this horrible disease and those remaining days and it just reminds us that we all have to celebrate every day like it's our last day.

"It's something that we have to remember and certainly in a world where there is just so much crisis and there is so much tragedy that we really need to be grateful for every moment that we have... spend time with our families, do things that are better, that benefit of other people to be of service to be kind, to be loving and these values with our leadership unfortunately that we're seeing around the world and certainly in America with this horrible, you know, corrupt government that is currently running America, we have to remember to treat our neighbours and our friends with the right values."