The Resilience Study, led by Dr Steve Thomas at TCD, was a detailed forensic analysis of how the health system coped with a downsizing of resources by an analysis of a range of performance indicators.

These show a system that managed ‘to do more with less’ from 2008 to 2012 using increased efficiencies such as clinical care programmes; agreements between health service management and unions which allowed for increased flexibility and productivity; reduced professional fees and drug cost savings.

They also found that some of the efficiencies were achieved by transferring the cost of care onto people and through significant resource cuts.

Significantly, from 2013, the indicators show a system that has no choice but ‘to do less with less’.

They indicate diminishing returns from crude cuts, evident in declining hospital cases, increased wait-times, as well as cuts to home care hours and increasing costs of agency staffing.

HRB Research Fellow, Dr Carol Sinnott, GP, has shown that people who suffered abusive experiences in childhood were 60% more likely to develop two or more chronic diseases in later life, than people who did not have adverse childhood experiences.

She says, 

'Interventions that target the coping strategies of survivors of childhood abuse and neglect may yield future benefits in chronic disease prevention. For example, interventions to help survivors avoid destructive coping strategies, such as alcohol abuse, smoking and drug abuse. These behaviours are significant contributors to the development of many chronic diseases.

Zena Moore, a HRB Research Fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and practicing nurse, found that a simple change to conventional repositioning practices could dramatically reduce pressure ulcers among elderly patients and introduce significant savings and efficiencies in the delivery of care.

'The new method we introduced uses a 30 degree tilt rather than 90 degree rotations', explains Ms Moore.

'It resulted in a four-fold reduction the incidence of pressure ulcers, so it is clearly better for patients. But it is also less time consuming, requires less nursing staff and it is more cost effective when compared with standard care'.