Principal Investigator
Professor Jonathan Drennan
Professor Drennan is currently Professor of Nursing at University College Dublin. He previously held the Chair of Nursing and Health Services Research at University College Cork and the Chair of Healthcare Research at the University of Southampton. He is registered in the general, psychiatric, learning disability and tutors' divisions of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland Register. His main area of clinical practice was emergency nursing. He was a key member of the Taskforce for Staffing and Skill Mix in Nursing and was involved in the development of the report and recommendations on Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix for General and Specialist Medical and Surgical Care Settings in Acute Adult Hospitals in Ireland (Department of Health, 2016). A key outcome of the report was the undertaking an evaluation of the pilot implementation of the Framework; Professor Drennan was successful in being awarded this competitive evaluation and led the team undertaking the research in three pilot sites. In this process, he developed and implemented the approach that is used in the development of a programme of research in safe nurse staffing.
Email: Jonathan.Drennan@ucd.ie
Dr Vera McCarthy
Dr Vera Mc Carthy is a Lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, UCC and the COrk PI on he HRB funded Programm of Research on Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill-Mix. Vera has a PhD in Occupational Epidemiology, an MA in Health Promotion, a BSc (Hons) in Nursing and a Dip (HE) in Nursing (Adult) and she has also completed a number of specialist courses. Her area of interest is Health Services Research. She brings her expertise on occupational epidemiology, psychosocial and physiological job characteristics and negative health outcomes, including chronic illness, to the team.