SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE HOME NURSING FOUNDATION’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY CAREGIVING CONFERENCE, 4 SEPTEMBER 2026

Mr Udairam, President, Home Nursing Foundation (HNF)

Dr Christina Tiong, Chief Executive Officer, HNF

Friends, colleagues, caregivers

Ladies and gentlemen

1.            I am pleased to join you today as HNF marks its Golden Jubilee. Congratulations on 50 years of excellent service.

HNF and the Growth of Community Care

2.            Since HNF was founded in 1976, it has grown, in both breadth and depth. It now provides home personal care services for frail and homebound seniors, and has extended its services to Active Ageing Centres or AACs, to help seniors stay active, and Senior Care Centres or SCCs, which provide day care and rehabilitation in the community.

3.            Community care is unlike acute hospital care. It is usually preventive, rehabilitative, and because of that nature, it is usually long term. It is delivered in the neighbourhoods, close to where patients live, close to where we live, and in many cases for HNF, in the homes of patients. And as Singapore’s population ages, MOH has been investing more in community care.

4.            It is a major structural change driven by the needs of patients. We therefore made conscious policy moves, to transfer or move care from acute hospital settings into the community, and we make those policy changes in funding, in care models, in deploying technology like telemedicine and resource allocation, so that we can smoothly deliver care from institutions to the community, to patients’ homes. The centre of gravity of healthcare is shifting towards the community, not as a slogan but in a very palpable, discernible manner.

5.            A very significant change is the deployment of more healthcare personnel to the community. Our public hospitals are doing this, setting up dedicated pools of community nurses. Community Care Organisations or CCOs are recruiting and expanding your manpower resources.

6.            More than physical numbers, healthcare professionals in the community must feel that they are making a meaningful contribution and are a core part of the healthcare system. And this is the strong impression I get when I visited the Netherlands recently, last year, and studied their community nursing system. You might have heard of Buurtzorg.

7.            While remuneration is not everything in a career, it does matter. That is why MOH and the AIC have rolled out salary guidelines for CCOs to ensure competitive remuneration in the community sector, compared to other segments of the healthcare sector. So in fact, based on MOH’s salary and remuneration guidelines, salary levels between acute hospital and community healthcare are substantively equivalent. But that is on paper, based on our guidelines.

8.            Complementing the guidelines is therefore stronger financial support for the CCOs, so that they can afford higher remuneration for their staff. We are providing over $30 million a year to help CCOs implement the revised salary guidelines. It will take a few more years to fully implement this, and I look forward to the day in the near future when remuneration for healthcare workers – nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals – is also setting neutral, and premises neutral.

The Contribution of Caregivers

9.            Other than healthcare workers, there is another group that is quietly toiling away in the background, and is recognised through the conference today, and they play a vital part but often unnoticed contribution. And they are the caregivers of patients.

10.         Most of us have or will assume the role of caregivers at some point in our lives. Even if we are not a caregiver now, we will know of friends, colleagues and relatives who have to care for a frail patient, a parent, a spouse, a loved one who is sick, or a child with disabilities. We will also need care one day ourselves. Caregiving, whether we are at the giving or receiving end, is a fact of life.

11.         Beyond the physical workload, caregivers also have to manage the emotional burden. Caregivers often worry whether they are doing enough or feel guilty that they have not done their best. As Members of Parliament, we attend many wakes held in our constituencies. I always prefer to visit in the day because that’s when I will tend to meet the caregivers of the deceased. Some of the relatives all come in the night, in the day there is nobody, only the caregivers or a few caregivers. And I will always make a point to tell them that they have done their best. And I know that every time I say that, it meant a lot to them.

12.         Caregivers deserve our support. And the Government can do so in some practical ways.

Strengthening Caregiver Support

13.         Let me start with financial support. Today, there are various financial support schemes that can benefit caregivers. They include the Home Caregiving Grant or HCG – which provides monthly cash payouts to defray caregiving costs for persons living in the community who require assistance with at least three Activities of Daily Living or ADLs. There are also a few other schemes, the Migrant Domestic Worker Levy Concession for Persons with Disabilities, the Caregivers Training Grant, and the Pioneer Generation Disability Assistance Scheme. Altogether there are four schemes to support families.

14.         There has always been feedback to lower the Home Caregiving Grant, or HCG’s criteria to allow persons with 2 ADLs needs to qualify. But this would broaden the scope of the scheme multiple times, and can dilute the objective of HCG which is to focus resources on those with higher levels of functional impairment, and who need the assistance most.

15.         So that said, there is a group of persons with intellectual disabilities or autism with significant care needs that may not qualify for HCG. They may be able to perform the ADLs, but they have significant care needs that are not adequately reflected by ADL assessment.

16.         We will therefore adjust the current policy, broaden the eligibility criteria to include such care needs of persons with intellectual disabilities or autism. This change will apply to all four financial support schemes I mentioned earlier, namely, HCG, Migrant Domestic Worker Levy Concession for Persons with Disabilities, Caregivers Training Grant, and the Pioneer Generation Disability Assistance Scheme, and we will do so from 2027, and MSF will come up with more details.

17.         Second, caregivers also need community, emotional, and moral support. This means having easy access to information so that they can navigate the caregiving system and various schemes, learning techniques to cope with the stress and fatigue of caregiving, knowing that there are others going through similar challenges, and receiving support from peers.

18.         The best way to provide moral support to caregivers is probably by having touchpoints within the community that are convenient and easy to access. So from 2027, we will equip eight aged care service providers and Enabling Services Hubs or ESHs across Singapore with Caregiver Support Touchpoints or what we call CSTs.

19.         These eight CSTs will be located at five aged care service providers in Tiong Bahru-Redhill, Toa Payoh, Bedok, Bukit Panjang, and Yishun, and three ESHs in Tampines, Punggol, and Jurong.

20.         Whether their loved one is a senior, person with a disability, dementia, facing mental health challenges or a serious illness, caregivers can approach any CST and simply ask: “I am a caregiver. What should I do? What help can I get?”

21.         And the staff there can help identify their needs, explain the types of support available, and connect them to appropriate services for themselves and their loved ones so caregivers can also look after their own needs. The CSTs can also guide caregivers to establish a self-care routine, a contingency plan in the event they are unable to care for their loved ones, or refer them to respite services or peer support groups.

22.         We hope we will not stop at eight CSTs, and can expand the CST network in future. Indeed, several other CCOs and Social Services Agencies are already providing caregivers with support services. The Mindfull Community and CaringSG for example, have been doing good work supporting caregivers of persons with mental health conditions and persons with disabilities, respectively. HNF’s CarersHub that we are launching today, is another good example, but this is for online support.

23.         Third, we should equip caregivers with the right skills throughout their journey. We will introduce a common caregiver training framework in early 2027. Information on training will be organised around caregivers’ needs at each stage of their journey, so caregivers need not search different websites to find training that is useful to them.

24.         The new statutory board, the SWDA, the Skills & Workforce Development Agency, together with AIC, SG Enable, will work with training providers to hold training closer to caregivers within the community such as through the CSTs under the SkillsFuture Care Programme. Some employers are also interested in organising training sessions and lunchtime talks on caregiving skills at their workplace. And we’ll encourage and support all of them.

Building Up the Ecosystem

25.         Ultimately, I think the most important support for caregivers, is to build up the caregiving ecosystem, so that caregivers get direct support in caregiving. We are doing this in a decisive and robust way, anchoring care in the community and making them accessible and affordable. That is why community and long-term care is growing rapidly in terms of budget spending and manpower deployment. In fact, of all the sectors of the healthcare system and our entire healthcare ecosystem, long term care, community care, is the sector that’s growing the fastest.

26.         And this can come in the form of an expanding AAC network throughout the island helping our seniors stay socially engaged, prevent loneliness and stay healthy – that upstream intervention is critical. Enhanced Home Personal Care service to provide more customised and frequent support for frail seniors in the community; more SCCs helping patients rehabilitate and able to live in the community; and the Integrated Community Care Provider or ICCP initiative to coordinate care across these settings; IT investments to ensure that patient data and patient care plans can be shared across providers so that there is better continuation and coordination of care; and ESHs, run by MSF, to offer persons with disabilities more social and recreational activities and learning workshops, and help them stay engaged while they reintegrate into the community.

27.         With better services for seniors and persons with disabilities, caregivers are more likely to have respite and support.

28.         I thank the HNF for being part of this effort and for all your services to help Singaporeans in need. The healthcare system will continue to need your help. Let me congratulate your management, staff, your leadership, your volunteers, your officers, your partners and your supporters on your 50^th Anniversary, and I look forward to walking this journey with you. Thank you.