Enhanced nursing home standards to care for our seniors better

 MOH intends to introduce an enhanced set of nursing home licensing standards by 2015. This is part of MOH’s ongoing efforts to enhance care standards in the intermediate and long term care (ILTC) sector.

2          A committee comprising nursing home operators, healthcare professionals and policy experts was appointed by the Minister for Health in 2012 to review the existing licensing standards for nursing homes and to ensure their continued effectiveness and relevance in providing quality care for our seniors. The committee studied best practices among nursing home operators both in Singapore and overseas, and has drawn up a proposed set of enhanced standards.

3          While largely reflecting existing good practices in the nursing home sector, the enhanced standards articulate more clearly the standard of care expected of all nursing homes, to guide nursing homes to care for our seniors better. The enhanced standards differ from the current licensing conditions in three main areas:

(a)  The enhanced standards articulate more clearly the requirements relating to safe clinical care. In particular, areas that were not specifically articulated in the current set of licensing standards have been elaborated on. These include pain management, continence management, falls prevention and mobility, skin care and pressure ulcers, oral hygiene and advance care planning.

(b)  The enhanced standards also articulate requirements in the social aspects of NH care, based on existing good practices today. These include ensuring that residents and their next-of-kin (NOK) are informed about their care plan, requiring NHs to ensure that the dignity of the individual resident is respected, as well as attending to the psychosocial well-being of residents.

(c)  New standards have been articulated in the area of organisational excellence, including financial management, staff organisation and management, staff competence, training and supervision, customer relations, and continuous improvement. This stems from the committee’s belief that good nursing home care must be underpinned by good organisation systems.

4          “We have engaged nursing home operators through a series of industry consultation sessions on the enhanced standards, since they were first announced at the Committee of Supply debate in March 2013. Nursing home operators are generally supportive of the enhanced standards and  have acknowledged the importance of raising care quality. We will continue to invest heavily to develop nursing homes’ capabilities and support them in achieving the enhanced standards. I hope the public will also actively share their suggestions on how our nursing homes can care for our seniors better, and help us shape the enhanced standards more effectively,” said Minister of State for Health and Manpower, Dr Amy Khor.

5          We will launch a public consultation from 5 July to 2 August to gather feedback on the enhanced set of nursing home licensing standards to ensure good quality care at nursing homes. Please refer to the Public Consultation paper on Enhancing Nursing Home Standards for more details.

6          All feedback on the enhanced set of nursing home licensing standards should reach the Ministry by 2 August 2013. The public can give us their feedback at moh_info@moh.gov.sg or send their comments to:

“Feedback on Enhancing Nursing Home Standards”
Ministry of Health
College of Medicine Building
16 College Road
Singapore 169854
Fax: 6224 1677

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
5 JULY 2013

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