Year in Review: Highlights from Our Programme Events
Our Regional Networking Events commenced in May this year and just finished with our last event that took place on the 16th of October. We were delighted to welcome some incredible expert speakers from Decision Support Service, Irish Hospice Foundation, Health Information and Quality Authority, National Office for Human Rights, and more.
We also hosted our annual Virtual Network during Palliative Care Week this year (if you missed it, you can watch it on our Particpant Resources page). Alongside nursing home staff, the event welcomed residents, family members, and healthcare professionals from a broad range of settings.
With all events this year our primary focus was to emphasise the importance of advance care planning and palliative care needs and provide the information and resources necessary to nursing home staff.
The first Regional Network event in Ballinasloe, “Planning Together for My Future in a Nursing Home”, was successfully delivered across CHO1, CHO2, and CHO8 in May, and provided a valuable platform for knowledge sharing, service updates, and partnership building, aligning with CHO priorities in older persons’ services and nursing home care.
The event was highly successful, with 69 attendees, and strong cross-CHO engagement. Feedback highlighted the value of the event in deepening understanding of palliative care and decision-making services while fostering stronger partnerships.
In September, the Kildare Regional Network event for CHO 6, 7, and 9 brought together 112 attendees from nursing homes across Dublin, Kildare, and other parts of the country.
Irish Hospice Foundation’s Think Ahead and Public Engagement Lead, Valerie Smith, delivered an impactful presentation on advance care planning, suggesting that Ireland is well positioned to lead the way in Europe in this area. Each speaker provided valuable insights into emerging policy, practice, and person-centred approaches to palliative and end-of-life care.
Our final Regional Network event in Cork welcomed 74 attendees, and was opened by Irish Hospice Foundation’s, Director of Healthcare, Siobhan Murphy, who delivered a comprehensive overview of the impact of Caru to-date.
Highlights included thought-provoking discussions on human rights, supported decision-making for residents and families, advance care planning, and palliative care needs assessment, including levels of palliative care.
We were delighted to welcome Nursing Home Ireland’s, CEO, Tadhg Daly, to this event, who reaffirmed NHI’s support for the Caru Programme and shared insights into its growing impact.
Regional Leads, Janet Tobin Martin and Mary Fahy showcased quality improvement projects from nursing homes in their CHO area, while Haven Bay Nursing Home supported by Regional Lead, Mark Murphy, presented their QI project in person, with the hope that these projects will inspire others to recognise the opportunity to transfer these project into their own settings.
The Caru Virtual Network took place on 11th September 2025 and was organised by Irish Hospice Foundation’s Healthcare Department as part of Palliative Care Week 2025.
This annual event aims to raise awareness of the importance of high-quality, person-centred care at the end of life, with this year’s theme being “Living for Today, Planning for Tomorrow.” In line with this theme, the network focused specifically on advance care planning.
What made this network particularly distinctive was its inclusive approach. Alongside nursing home staff, the event welcomed residents, family members, and healthcare professionals from a broad range of settings. A total of 583 participants took part in the session.
Titled “Your Voice, Your Choice, Your Advance Care Plan,” the webinar explored both the principles and practicalities of advance care planning in nursing home settings. It highlighted the importance of proactive, person-centred planning to ensure each resident’s care aligns with their individual values, preferences, and goals, especially in situations where they may no longer be able to make decisions themselves. The presentations were delivered by Gavan O’Sullivan, CNS in Dementia Care, and GP Dr Eoin Monahan.
Participants were encouraged to view advance care planning not as a one-time task or form, but as an ongoing, meaningful conversation between residents, families, and staff.
The session also featured two powerful videos sharing perspectives from a resident and from a family member whose mother lives in a nursing home, bringing a deeply personal and human voice to the topic.
"This webinar was filled with authentic conversations about normalising earlier conversations about living and dying. It simplified everything so sweetly, one would wonder why there is so much fear"
Our events for this year are now over. If you would like to stay up-to-date on our events taking place in 2026, please watch our events page, follow our Eventbrite, or sign up for our newsletter.
You can watch the recording of our Virtual Network below if you missed it.