The new NI Hospice building in Belfast was officially opened by the Countess of Wessex yesterday, Tuesday 23rd January.
Her Royal Highness unveiled a plaque to commemorate the opening of the charity’s dementia-friendly facility which provides specialist palliative care services to people from all over Northern Ireland in Hospice and in the community.
It has 18 private en-suite bedrooms, private gardens, rehabilitation suites, a community nursing hub and a dedicated Education and Research Centre.
It is also the first dementia-friendly hospice of its kind in the UK.
Belfast Charitable Society have been working with Northern Ireland Hospice since 2015. The Society donated £250,000 to support the work of NI Hospice over four years. This included an initial capital grant of £100,000 towards the building of this new state-of-the-art adult hospice and a further £150,000 revenue grant for three years to March 2018.
The Hospice have used the money to invest in research into best practice in palliative care, training for multi-disciplinary staff and to evaluate current models of service delivery – all of which informed a wider transformational change programme which the Society has invested in for the latter two years.
The Society are delighted to see the hard work of NI Hospice come to fruition and recognised by the Countess of Wessex. Una McAuley, Honorary Secretary of the Belfast Charitable Society said, “We are delighted to have supported the essential work of Northern Ireland Hospice and trust this new facility will provide support and comfort to families through the most difficult of times.”