Top EU honour for UCC project

Just four observations is all it can take to predict who will end up in hospital, a nursing home, or dead within the next six months if they do not receive the care needed.

The simple procedure, developed by a team in University College Cork, has won recognition from the EU and is being snapped up by other countries.

They screened 800 people last March, rating their mental, physical and other aspects of their health and wellbeing, and assigning them a risk factor from a low of one to a high of five.