Speech by Mr. Heng Chee How, Senior Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, at the Denmark-Singapore Discussion Forum on "Elderly Friendly Societies by Design - Smart Design and Active Ageing", 15 November 2016

Her Excellency, Mrs Dorte Bech Vizard, Ambassador of Denmark to Singapore

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning

INTRODUCTION

       I am pleased to join all of you this morning for this Denmark-Singapore dialogue on smart design and active ageing.

SINGAPORE-DENMARK RELATIONS

2     Singapore enjoys longstanding, warm and friendly relations with Denmark. Our economic and trade ties are strong, and we have also established fruitful exchanges in innovation, arts and culture, education and health as well as developing smart cities. This is not the first forum that both countries have had and I believe that our robust exchange of ideas and discussions will continue into this forum today.

AGEING IN SINGAPORE

3     Like many cities, Singapore’s population is rapidly ageing. A baby boom generation is reaching retirement, and many are living significantly longer than their parents did. Today, 1 in 8 Singaporeans are aged 65 and above. By 2030, this will be 1 in 4^[1]. Denmark will be in a similar situation as us, with 1 out of every 4 Danes aged 65 and above by 2040^[2].

4     Population ageing is one of the most important driving forces that is shaping societies around the world. For instance, an ageing population poses significant challenges to the healthcare system, which has to respond to higher demand for healthcare and aged care services, while ensuring accessibility and affordability for all. Many countries are now grappling with how best to deliver and organise care for a rapidly ageing population whilst ensuring financial sustainability.

5     But population ageing need not always lead to doom and gloom. Amid the challenges of an ageing population, there are also opportunities that come with increasing longevity. For Singapore, the good news is that we are not only living longer but also healthier. Our Health Adjusted Life Expectancy, or HALE for short, which provides an estimate of the average number of years lived in good health, has increased from 65.3 years in 1990^[3] to 72.3 years in 2015^[4] for males, and from 68.5 years³ to 75.0 years⁴ for females. Instead of worrying about getting old, we should rally our citizens to instead embrace longevity and to make the best use of their longer life years to enrich their lives and the lives of others, and turn productive longevity into a positive force for our nation’s development.

BUILDING A CITY FOR ALL AGES

6     It is with this in mind that Singapore is investing heavily to promote healthy and active ageing. In August 2015, the Ministerial Committee on Ageing launched a $3 billion Action Plan for Successful Ageing which covers more than 70 initiatives across 12 areas. A key thrust of this Action Plan is to build Singapore into a City for All Ages where our seniors can age gracefully in place. In designing our city, we have sought to ensure that we have a comprehensive suite of facilities to support the needs of seniors. More importantly, we are working towards building an enabling and inclusive city in which our seniors can continue to lead active and engaging lives. We have made both “hardware” and “software” improvements in communities in Singapore.

Hardware Improvements

7     In urban design, we have integrated the needs of our seniors to encourage and enable their participation in the community. First, on the housing front, we have provided more options for seniors such as 2-room flexi flats and highly-subsidised retrofit features such as grab bars to make their homes safer under our Housing and Development Board’s Enhancement for Active Seniors (EASE) programme. To date, more than 43,000 households have benefited from these enhancements.

8     Second, town retrofits. Several communities have engaged volunteer residents to audit the town environment for senior friendliness and made hardware enhancements to make the town environment safer. Some of the enhancements include smoothening pathways, installing more rest stops and replacing metal drain covers with less slippery concrete ones to create safer environments for our seniors.

9     Third, transport. The Ministry of Transport has developed a plan which features improved pedestrian networks including safer traffic junctions, and senior-friendly signages at train stations and bus stops to make it more convenient for seniors to move around.

10     Fourth, parks. Our National Parks Board is building therapeutic gardens in various communities to invite our seniors to enjoy the outdoors with their friends. These gardens were designed based on the science of horticulture therapy, to support the care of seniors with dementia and post-stroke, with the purpose of improving their physical and psychological well-being.

11     We have also shifted the way care is organised and delivered in Singapore, by moving care delivery beyond hospitals to home. We are not only building up our primary care and long-term care services, but also working on integrating care services. Given that many Singaporeans and seniors today own homes in public housing estates, we have sought to integrate care within new housing precincts through “Active Ageing Hubs”. These are one-stop day centres for seniors that serve a range of needs – from active ageing services for ambulant seniors, to day care and day rehabilitation and assisted living services for seniors who are frailer. We will be co-locating childcare and eldercare centres in some 10 new housing developments over the next 10 years to promote inter-generational harmony by creating opportunities for the very young and old to interact meaningfully.

Software Improvements

12     While improvements to physical infrastructure are important, these must be complemented with initiatives from the heart to build inclusive societies that improve the quality of lives for seniors. We need to add life to years, and not just years to life, and create more opportunities for seniors to stay socially, mentally and physically engaged.

13     To enable this, we are systematically promoting community-based befriending and working with various community organisations to recruit volunteers to reach out to isolated seniors and encourage them to participate in social activities. In fact, many of our befrienders are seniors themselves! We seek to foster personal and social interactions between seniors, so as to build a stronger community for our seniors to age in place.

14     We recently set up the National Silver Academy to enable seniors to stay cognitively active through learning. This is a network of educational institutions that provides more than 10,000 places in over 500 courses to enable seniors to learn for the sake of learning.

15     We are also partnering employers, unions and community-based organisations to bring health education and preventative health services to seniors in the community, to encourage them to stay physically active and healthy, and live independently in the community for as long as possible. One example is the National Wellness Programme where we have leveraged the People’s Association’s existing community and social nodes to expand access to health education programmes and to promote social interaction among seniors. To date, the Wellness Programme has reached out to 1 in 2 seniors.

CREATING A COMMUNITY FOR ALL AGES – THE WHAMPOA STORY

16     To support communities to create communities for all ages, we started the City for All Ages (CFAA) initiative under the Ministerial Committee on Ageing in 2012. Through this initiative, we hope to work with communities to enhance the liveability of the built environment and to encourage ground up age-friendly initiatives. The CFAA journey started in four communities namely, Bedok, Taman Jurong, Marine Parade and Whampoa, and eventually expanded to 12 more communities.

17     Let me share more about what we have done in my constituency at Whampoa, as part of the CFAA journey. We started with a series of town hall forums, health screenings and town audits to engage residents and to find out how the community could be better supported, and to identify which parts of the environment could be made more senior-friendly. Through the town audits, we partnered with the Town Council to implement age-friendly infrastructure improvements such as leveling of uneven pavements as well as introducing hand rails, ramps and improving the lighting and widening of footpaths.

18     Beyond the hardware improvements, we have taken steps to build a network of active ageing nodes in Whampoa to encourage residents to age well, stay active and socially engaged. We introduced a suite of regular health and wellness activities at our Community Club (CC) and Residents’ Committee (RC) Centres, including the Weekly i-Sing and Dance sessions to encourage seniors to sing, dance and bond. In all our RCs, we continue to run a series of health education talks called the SCOPE (Self-Care on Health of Older Persons in Singapore) programme, which aims to improve seniors’ self-efficacy in maintaining their health, controlling chronic disease and improving functional status.

19     Most recently, we have upgraded our Whampoa CC where we will host a Community for Successful Ageing or COMSA. This pilot is a collaboration between the National Healthcare Group (NHG) and Tsao Foundation, and will test a model of twinning primary and aged care in a mature estate to help seniors in Whampoa age well in place. We hope to provide holistic care and improve accessibility to health and social services for community dwelling seniors.

20     As we continue to build a community for all ages in Whampoa to empower seniors to lead healthier and happier lives, we must also build a sense of community where residents feel cared for and supported, and where neighbours will look out for one another. This is so that we can continue to live safely and confidently in Whampoa.

CONCLUSION

21     Ageing is a challenge for many cities around the world. Although Singapore is early in her journey to prepare for an ageing population, we have a short runway. On this note, I would like to thank Ambassador Dorte Bech Vizard for your kind invitation and the Royal Danish Embassy for organising this forum. I am confident that the discussions and sharing today will spur innovation and spark ideas for us to help a growing population around the world to age well and age happily.

22     I wish everyone a fruitful exchange of ideas and knowledge. Thank you.

^[1] Source: Department of Statistics & Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health

^[2] Source: Trade Department of the Royal Danish Embassy in Singapore

^[3] Source: “Life Expectancy in Singapore”, Published 13 April 2016, Ministry of Health

^[4] Source: Global, regional, and national disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 315 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy (HALE), 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. The Lancet. Oct 2016