On the outbreak of war in 1914 the Headquarters Council of the Ulster Volunteers Force offered its complete medical organisation to the War Office in the form of a fully equipped hospital for the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers. The offer was gratefully accepted and at the beginning of 1915 this establishment was formally opened by Lord and Lady Carson.

The original main hospital was contained in a building called the Exhibition Hall, adjoining Queen's University, which was given free of cost by Belfast Corporation. Other and smaller branch hospitals were established later at Craigavon and in other parts of Belfast and at Gilford, Co Down.

The hospitals were originally financed by an appeal to the public but it was largely owing to the untiring efforts of the late Sir Robert M Liddell and the late Sir Dawson Bates, Bart, that the response was so great and to their guidance in later years that the existence of the present establishment is now due.

When hostilities were over and the War Office demand for beds for servicemen gradually came to an end, the main function of the hospitals centred on the care of ex-service patients sent for treatment by the Ministry of Pensions. This happy association between the Ministry and Home, which originated in 1917 with the admission of neurasthenic pensioner patients to Craigavon, has continued ever since.

By the late 1980s the UVF Hospital was in need of modernisation. The Trustees decided to close the hospital and open a registered nursing home in the Somme Wing, which was to be extended and upgraded. As a result the Somme Hospital opened in September 1992 and the UVF Hospital closed its doors. In March 1995 the name was changed to the "Somme Nursing Home".

The nursing home was made up of thirty-five beds consisting of 6 open wards, 2 double and one single room. The atmosphere whilst bright and cheerful was more suited to a small hospital that a home. Numbers were dropping and it was clear that families wanted single rooms for their relatives.

In response to this, in 1998, the Trustees sold the Nightingale wards of the old UVF Hospital and the attached walled garden. The money went towards a major building and renovation programme providing 32 single rooms and 2 double rooms with en-suite accommodation.