MOH’s addendum to the President’s address 2011

MOH’s addendum to the President’s address 2011

12 Oct 2011

Our vision is to enable all Singaporeans to live well, live long and enjoy peace of mind.  We will continue to invest in developing our healthcare system and continually fine-tune our health policies to meet Singaporeans’ needs.

Looking Back

Over the past five years, MOH has added more than 700 public acute and community hospital beds, including the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, and increased the number of doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals by more than 50%. This allowed us to maintain good public satisfaction ratings and contain waiting times despite expanding patient loads.

To facilitate seamless care for patients, acute hospitals have started working in close partnership with other healthcare providers.  The Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) was restructured to better help patients transit from acute hospitals to community care settings. The first phase of the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) was launched, allowing flow of medical records across public sector entities.

To promote medical excellence, two academic medical centres were established, and support for translational and clinical research expanded.  The Alice Lee School of Nursing and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School produced their first graduates.  

To ensure health care remains affordable, MOH expanded subsidies for medication and for aged care, especially for the needy elderly.  The coverage and payouts for MediShield and ElderShield were improved, and Medifund’s capital sum topped-up from S$1.1 bn to S$2.5 bn.  Medisave use was extended to outpatient care for major chronic diseases, integrated screening and new vaccinations.

Going Forward

Promoting Better Health for Singaporeans

We will step up efforts to encourage Singaporeans to make healthier choices.  The Health Promotion Board (HPB) will adopt a more ground-up approach to promote healthy living in schools, work places and the community. We will work with local communities to tackle obesity, smoking and HIV, while reviewing the effectiveness of our controls against harmful substances such as tobacco. We will expand the coverage and reach of our national health screening and follow-up care programmes.

We will remain vigilant against public health threats.  The healthcare sector responded well when the H1N1 outbreak in 2009 and Japan’s nuclear radiation leak in 2011 tested the system. Nonetheless, we will strengthen our knowledge and capabilities against a range of potential threats, including through the establishment of a School for Public Health at the National University of Singapore.

Better Care   

We will extend the range and coverage of healthcare services required to tackle the problems of cancer and chronic conditions (in particular cardiovascular diseases and diabetes), and conditions impacting the elderly by:

• Building new acute hospitals, community hospitals and nursing homes, and upgrading existing ones.  This includes the development of Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Jurong Community Hospital, Yishun Community Hospital and a new acute hospital and community hospital in Sengkang.
  

• Introducing new models for primary care and rehabilitative care, and developing new capabilities in community care, mental health, and home care, so that Singaporeans can age-in-place in the community.  We will build new family medicine clinics, medical centres and community care infrastructure and extend subsidies for these new care models.
  

• Integrating care for the elderly and people with chronic conditions so that their treatment is managed on an ongoing rather than episodic basis, and they can move seamlessly between providers, whether public, private or community, to get appropriate care.
  

• 2Raising the standard and quality of pre-hospital emergency care by better integrating ambulance services with the national health system.

To support these new care models, we will:

• Draw upon providers nationwide to deliver care to Singaporeans, through expanded portable subsidy schemes for the private primary care and charity-based long term care sectors, supported by partnerships with the public sector entities.  Private acute hospitals will have a greater role in serving the subsidised healthcare needs of Singaporeans.
  

• Enhance capabilities and capacity of the Intermediate and Long-Term Care (ILTC) sector, by strengthening the governance and regulation of healthcare providers, and supporting them to attract, recruit and retain capable staff.  We will also facilitate the development of primary care providers, including general practitioners, to deliver integrated and team-based care.
  

• Continue to invest in training and upgrading our healthcare workforce and address recruitment and retention issues.  Together with MOE, we are expanding the local medical intakes through the new Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and working on a new degree programme to upgrade our diploma-level allied health professionals at the Singapore Institute of Technology.  We will increase scholarships for healthcare-related occupations and bring more overseas Singaporean professionals home.
  

• Help build organisational and systems-level capabilities to improve processes, quality and safety frameworks, and team-based care.  We will exploit technology to facilitate cost-effective home and community-based care.  This includes expanding call centre services, and implementing the next phase of the NEHR, which will include non-public sector providers, and allow Singaporeans access to their key medical information.
  Strengthen regulations, to ensure Singaporeans receive reliably high standards of care. The Health Sciences Authority will expand its scope of regulatory coverage to ensure that products and treatments are safe and effective.    

Better Value

We will assess our healthcare financing framework to ensure Singaporeans can afford the medical care they require, at the appropriate and cost-effective setting, while striking a balance with fiscal sustainability. 

To strengthen the social safety net, we will look into:

• Expanding subsidies for outpatient care and for medication, particularly for vulnerable groups such as the low-income households, needy elderly with limited Medisave, amongst others.  While continuing to target subsidies, we will rationalise and streamline the means-testing approaches.  We will consider how to contain exceptionally high bills to give patients peace of mind.
  

• Further improving affordability of ILTC services, through enhancements to ElderShield and expansion of subsidies;
  

• Bringing more Singaporeans under MediShield, including the very old, the very young with congenital conditions, and those with psychiatric conditions;
  

• Facilitating a better understanding and control of medical inflation, by promoting transparency of billing and performance;
  

• Improving financial counselling and education on healthcare treatment options so that patients can make informed choices.

To raise our capabilities in the healthcare system, we will invest more in areas that will reap benefits in the longer-term, such as geriatrics, rehabilitation and organ transplants. We will encourage biomedical research and innovations, to develop better and more cost-effective diagnoses and treatments for our patients.

Ministerial Committee on Ageing

Our population is ageing rapidly. We need to prepare our infrastructure, systems and workplaces so that Singaporeans can age-in-place within the community.  Led by the Ministerial Committee on Ageing, the key strategies will include:

• Supporting Active Ageing, so that older Singaporeans remain active and engaged in society and the community;
  

• Significantly stepping up investments in the continuum of healthcare and social care facilities, including the development of home care and family support services;
  

• Recruiting and training manpower for the sector;
  

• Consulting and engaging local communities, so that ageing-in-place is a shared goal for the public and Government.