We work to ensure that our health care system delivers equitable and quality palliative, end-of-life and bereavement care in the care setting of a person’s choice be that a hospital, a nursing home or in the home.
Our work is primarily focused on advocating for the needs identified and informing policy development through our various programmes:
Most adults in Ireland say that they wish to die at home. While not everyone can, nor should, die at home, Irish Hospice Foundation and our age sector partners believe that more can be done to enable greater choice about place of care as death approaches.
Dying Well at Home
Key to this work is our Dying Well at Home programme, which has a number of key activities attached to it including our Nurses for Night Care service. As we develop this programme of work, we are focused on advocating for and informing several key policy developments in Ireland related to care in the home.
Caru – Supporting Care & Compassion at End of Life in Nursing Homes
Caru is a continuous learning programme developed by Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) in partnership with the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care (AIIHPC) and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Caru is aimed at supporting and empowering nursing homes and their staff in the delivery of palliative, end of life, and bereavement care to residents. Working in partnership with the Caru programme, we advocate for the delivery of excellence in palliative, end-of-life and bereavement care in nursing homes.
Hospice Friendly Hospitals
Hospice Friendly Hospitals (HFH) is one of our pioneering programmes. In partnership with the HSE, over 47 hospitals nationwide are now linked with HFH.
It was established in 2007 to introduce a strategic and focused approach to the improvement of end-of-life care in acute hospitals. It takes a multi-level and multi-systems approach to end-of-life care working with all staff at all levels of the hospital, hospital group, HSE and government nationally.
Working with the programme we advocate for investment in palliative, end-of-life and bereavement care services in hospitals and at a national level.
For queries contact our Advocacy Manager Avril Easton at [email protected].
