Thanks to the on-going committed support of our community and their tireless fundraising efforts, North West Hospice has been to the forefront of palliative care in Ireland. We are the only specialist palliative care service in the State providing services which are integrated across acute, community and hospice. We were the first to provide community palliative care on a 7-day week basis and, in 1998, we opened our specialist In-Patient care facility in Sligo.
In 1986, Claire Campbell, a social worker in the North West of Ireland, identified the need for specialist care to support people with cancer and their families. She set up a number of volunteer support groups in the community and North West Hospice service was founded. Over time, the need for this specialist approach, called palliative care, increased.