SPEECH BY MR GAN KIM YONG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH, AT THE SINGAPORE PHARMACY COUNCIL PHARMACIST’S PLEDGE AFFIRMATION CEREMONY, 7 JUNE 2019

Mr Wu Tuck Seng, President, Singapore Pharmacy Council,
Distinguished Members of the Council,
Newly Registered Pharmacists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good evening

    It is my pleasure to join you today at the 2019 Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony. My congratulations to all the newly registered pharmacists. The Pharmacist’s Pledge symbolises your commitment to uphold ethical and professional standards throughout your professional career as a pharmacist.

Changes in the Singapore Healthcare Landscape

2.     Like many countries, Singapore faces multiple challenges in healthcare. These include growing healthcare needs arising from an ageing population, and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, coupled with rising demand for more advanced healthcare services and medications. These challenges necessitate a major transformation of the delivery of care and the use of medications in Singapore. Pharmacists play a critical role in this transformation journey. 

3.   One example is how we can better serve seniors with complex medical conditions.  Today, many of these seniors are taking multiple medications, a phenomenon also known as “polypharmacy”. This increases the risk of non-compliance and medication errors, and results in unnecessary trips to hospitals and clinics. In 2018, the Ministry of Health (MOH) launched a community-based Pharmaceutical Care Services (PCS) pilot. This service helps seniors with their medications by deploying community pharmacists at Senior Care Centres (SCCs). We started with a pool of some 15 pharmacists from our polyclinics and retail pharmacies such as Guardian, Watsons and Unity Pharmacy.

4.  The initial results from the pilot are encouraging. So far, about 155 seniors and caregivers have benefited from the service. One of the beneficiaries of the service is Mr Yeo, a 72-year-old senior. Mr Yeo’s daughter had accompanied him to the doctor who had prescribed new glaucoma eye-drops for Mr Yeo. However, she forgot to inform Mr Yeo’s son, who was his main caregiver. As a result, his son continued to apply the old eye-drops t for a few months. The PCS pharmacist spotted this during the consultation at the Senior Care Centre. After the pharmacist alerted the son, Mr Yeo was started on the correct eye-drops. We are now studying how this service can be extended to other areas in phases to bring pharmacy care beyond hospitals to the community.

5.      As part of the healthcare transformation efforts, senior qualified pharmacists in public healthcare can now also collaboratively prescribe medications, under the supervision of doctors. This empowers senior pharmacists to expand their scope of practice and improve access to quality and cost-effective care for our patients.

6.    In health promotion and preventive care, the role of pharmacists can also be expanded. For example, community pharmacy programmes in smoking cessation counselling and diabetes risk assessment can provide timely and opportunistic interventions. Indeed, a study by the National Skin Centre published this year found that a structured pharmacist-led smoking cessation clinic can have a positive impact in reducing smoking, and in turn improve the management of skin conditions. 

Training Pharmacists to meet Future Healthcare Needs

7.       The education and training of pharmacists will have to be enhanced to realise the potential of these developments. This is the reason behind the new Standards for Undergraduate Pharmacy Education and Training published by the Singapore Pharmacy Council in 2018.  The standards ensure that pharmacy graduates entering the profession will continue to be relevant and of high quality.

8.      The National University of Singapore is also enhancing their undergraduate pharmacy curriculum. With earlier integration of practice-based pre-registration training rotations into the final year of the programme, the time needed for a graduate to start practising as a registered pharmacist has been shortened by three months. The inaugural batch from this enhanced curriculum are in fact taking their pledge today as newly registered pharmacists.

9.       Other enhancements are also underway. New training and accreditation standards for the residency programme were introduced in April 2019. A new series of faculty development workshops has been rolled out since November last year to build clinical teaching and assessment skills of the residency preceptors. A stronger preceptorship system has been put in place for pharmacists to learn from role models and mentors on how to deliver better quality training.

Need for Continuous Professional Development

10.     With the healthcare landscape continuing to evolve, even the more experienced practitioners will need to constantly acquire new knowledge and competencies through continuous professional development. The Competency Standards for Pharmacists in Advanced Practice serves as a useful developmental reference that help pharmacists to navigate changes in competency requirements for advanced practice.

11.       The concept of practice portfolio has also been introduced, for pharmacists to chart their professional development and attainment of competencies. Since May 2018, 238 senior pharmacists have attended portfolio training workshops to be equipped with the skills to build and assess practice portfolios. A portfolio building toolkit has been developed by MOH in collaboration with Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) to help pharmacists to prepare a practice portfolio in line with the competency standards.

12.    In February 2019, the (Pharmacy) Specialists Accreditation Board (PSAB) started accrediting existing registered pharmacists with relevant experience for two new specialties – Critical Care Pharmacy and Paediatric Pharmacy. Critical care specialist pharmacists apply their knowledge and skills to ensure the safe and effective use of medications in critically ill patients. Paediatric specialist pharmacists, on the other hand, play an important role in optimising medication use, improving safe use of medicines and reducing medication errors and adverse drug effects in paediatric patients.

13.     The Board started with accrediting existing pharmacists who have attained specialist-level competencies through on-the-job training and practice. Structured residency programmes for new pharmacists are now being developed for these two new specialties. These are expected to be accredited by the Board and launched in mid-2020.

Closing

14.    Ladies and Gentlemen, all these changes are timely and they help our pharmacists contribute towards our ongoing healthcare transformation to serve our people better. I would like to once again congratulate our newly registered pharmacists.

15.      The solemn promise you make tonight signifies your lifelong commitment towards achieving excellence in your profession to improve the quality of care for our patients.  We welcome you to our healthcare family and wish all of you a successful and fulfilling career. 

Thank you.