INTERVENTION BY DR LAM PIN MIN, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF HEALTH & MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT, AT THE MINISTERIAL ROUNDTABLE, MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE ON DIABETES ON 27 NOVEMBER 2018

Your Excellencies

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

A very good morning to one and all 

First of all, I wish to thank the Ministers and Vice-Ministers for their insightful and generous sharing.

2. Your Excellencies, Singapore recognizes the importance of local and global cooperation with our stakeholders in our fight against diabetes. Today, I wish to share Singapore’s experience in how we engage and mobilise key local stakeholders to join the Ministry of Health in the War on Diabetes, and on the global front, the importance of working with the WHO and the international community in our fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes.

Citizens’ Jury: A deliberative engagement methodology

3. The effective engagement and mobilisation of key stakeholders is key to achieving our intended policy outcomes, be it for the delivery of healthcare services or promoting healthy lifestyles. We believe that our citizens can contribute meaningfully to the co-creation and co-delivery of initiatives on issues that are important to them. With that in mind, Singapore embarked on our first Citizens’ Jury on the War on Diabetes this year. A Citizens’ Jury, or CJ for short, is a process where members of the public are recruited as volunteers to meet together ‒ and in our case, over the course of a few months ‒ and engage and make recommendations to the Government on issues of importance to the community. The process is participant-led, and the outcomes can be unpredictable at times. We chose to take the bold step, and posed the diabetes challenge to a jury of public stakeholders.

4.      A total of 76 volunteers formed the CJ, and they represented a diversity of views and experiences ranging from: (i) individuals with diabetes; (ii) caregivers for persons with diabetes; (iii) healthcare providers; and (iv) individuals who neither have diabetes nor know others with diabetes. Over a seven-week period, the participants came together to discuss the issue with technical experts, study available resources, debate with each other, and eventually proposed a set of recommendations which was eventually submitted to the Government.

5.      The Ministry of Health has since accepted, facilitated and implemented some of these recommendations, for example:

 (i)     Increasing the MediSave (Singapore’s mandatory individual medical savings account) withdrawal limit for the Chronic Disease Management Programme to defray the out-of-pocket expenditure for outpatient treatment;
(ii)     Supporting the CJ’s ‘Drink Plain Water’ recommendation through enhanced public education efforts, such as videos which you may have previously seen; and
(iii)      Facilitating tie-ups between CJ participants with organisations to conduct healthy cooking demonstrations in community settings and at workplaces, as well as to promote the healthier option of home-cooking.

6.      The CJ process was a tremendous success, with implementable recommendations, and also participants who came out of the process with a desire to contribute more actively to our whole-of-society efforts in the War on Diabetes, and at the same time pledged to inspire their family, friends and community to do so.

Public-Private Partnership: Reformulation of food and drink products

7.      Unhealthy diet is a key modifiable risk factor for diabetes and other NCDs alike. The food and beverage industry has a crucial role to play in improving the nutritional landscape. The Health Promotion Board of Singapore has had encouraging success in working with the industry on reformulation, including providing funding support through the Healthier Ingredient Development Scheme. The median sugar level of drinks in our local market has fallen from 9.5 per cent in 2007 to 5.9 per cent in 2017. Singaporeans’ taste preference has also shifted. The sale of lower-sugar drinks that carry the Healthier Choice Symbol, a visual identifier that marks out healthier products, have grown in tandem and now takes up 43 per cent of the market share, up from 30 per cent in 2012. Although more remains to be done, continued partnerships between the Government, public and private stakeholders hold the key to advance our progress.

International Cooperation and the WHO: Key in the prevention of NCDs

8.      Effective engagements should also take place on the global stage. Here, I would like to commend the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the significant emphasis it has placed on the need to take collective global action to address the issue of NCDs. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal targets on health, in particular, reducing premature mortality from NCDs is paramount in delivering better outcomes for all.

9.      This year, the WHO has mobilized and galvanized action by convening the WHO Independent High-level Commission on NCDs to accelerate progress towards achieving SDG target 3.4. Singapore is privileged to be able to contribute to the work of this commission. Member States had intensified political commitments towards addressing NCDs at the 3rd UN High Level meeting on NCDs in September this year.  I am confident that such high level commitments will result in significant change worldwide, as governments work to prevent and control NCDs in their populations. With collective thought leadership, and a community of partners with which to share ideas, innovations, best practices and encouragement, we can together strengthen our resolve, break new ground, and advance our position in our War on Diabetes.

Closing

10.    In closing, we are all on the journey towards addressing NCDs and there is much to learn from each other’s experiences, perspectives and practices. I hope that the Ministerial Conference on Diabetes has helped to place diabetes on the global agenda and provide a platform to share international best practices. We need to accelerate the work being done to prevent and control NCDs. It is now time to deliver. Together, we can realise our vision of a better health and a better life for all. Thank you.