SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE SINGAPORE HEALTH QUALITY SERVICE AWARDS

Colleagues

Award winners

Ladies and gentlemen

1.               I am very happy to join you this afternoon for the 2026 Singapore Health Quality Service Awards.

2.               This is the 17th year of this event, where we gather to appreciate, celebrate,  recognise the exemplary efforts of healthcare professionals in delivering quality care and positive patient experiences. I would like to welcome a few new participating institutions, namely, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Jurong Community Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital and Raffles Medical Group. Welcome.

3.               We all know we are an ageing population, and this will continue to drive up the demand for healthcare services. This means we must do two things at the same time: number one, expand healthcare infrastructure, and number two, transform healthcare delivery through new models of care to manage more patients with complex healthcare demands and needs.

4.               These changes have a profound impact on healthcare manpower demand and capabilities. COVID-19 was a wake-up call for many healthcare jurisdictions around the world, because as we were all scrambling for healthcare manpower, and post-COVID-19, we have placed even stronger emphasis on expanding and developing our healthcare manpower. So we stepped up training, we improved our development and recruitment; enhanced our remuneration across the board – I hope you felt it, including the ANGEL scheme for nurses; and instituted a zero tolerance for abuse policy.

5.               These were important steps, but much more needs to be done to support healthcare expansion and transformation. Healthcare manpower in these coming years will be a top agenda for MOH.

Support for Infrastructure Expansion

6.               What do we need? First, we need to expand healthcare manpower in tandem with the expansion of healthcare capacity.

7.               In the West, Alexandra Hospital is being transformed into a bigger campus, expanding to about 1,300 beds, with a full range of clinical services and facilities. It is expected to progressively open from 2028. In the East, we are developing the Eastern General Hospital Campus. The campus is being developed for progressive opening from 2029, with about 1,400 beds when completed. So Changi General Hospital, please hang in there. In the North West, we are developing the new Tengah General Hospital, targeted to open progressively too from the early 2030s. These are all major long-term investments, planned years in advance.

8.               We are also expanding existing healthcare capacity. Several existing hospitals are going through major redevelopment and expansion. MIC@Home, or Mobile Inpatient Care at Home, is also progressively expanding. There are currently about 270 MIC@Home beds nationally.

9.               To support these expansions, we are working towards growing our national healthcare manpower by 20% from now til 2030. This is a significant increase, which needs to be carefully phased in and managed, with new healthcare professionals properly trained and properly integrated into our existing operations.

10.           For the new hospitals, we do this through the concept called “nesting”, which you are familiar with. For example, we are actively recruiting manpower now for the Eastern General Hospital (EGH), and they will soon begin to build “nests” in SingHealth’s hospitals starting this year.

11.           This means that new EGH staff will be deployed first to existing SingHealth hospitals and national specialty centres. So you will start work first while waiting the opening of the new campus, the EGH staff will augment the team at Changi General Hospital. They will be trained, they will gain relevant experiences and become familiarised with the work processes. In this way, EGH staff will serve patients even before the physical campus is ready.

Job Transformation

12.           Second big area of work, is that we must transform our workforce and do things differently and do things better. This will enable us to meet the demands and needs of a changing patient profile, who are older, and will have more complex and multiple conditions. We must better coordinate and consolidate patients’ care journeys; optimise manpower resources to handle a growing workload; and enable healthcare professionals to practise at your full potential.

13.           In acute hospitals, we are working towards clinical teams led by a Principal Doctor for each patient as far as we can. And this doctor will develop a unified care plan, incorporating inputs from other healthcare professionals based on the patient’s needs. Principal Doctors will be drawn from a pool of doctors with broader clinical expertise. Traditionally, these have been the experienced specialists. And to strengthen this pool, we have enhanced the Hospital Clinician (HC) scheme to develop clinicians with broad knowledge and expertise that can take on the Principal Doctors role. We are growing this scheme progressively, and over time, more HCs will take on advanced clinical responsibilities and leadership roles in our public hospitals.

14.           Beyond hospitals, we are also redesigning healthcare roles in the community. For nurses, we are working on expanded roles in community care, long-term care, palliative care, where continuity and relationships matter deeply to patients and families.

15.           We have implemented a sector-wide Job Redesign initiative for support care staff, to expand and uplift their roles, as well as to create a structured career pathway for them. Under the expanded roles of community care associates, they will be able to take on higher-skilled tasks, such as administering tube feeding and managing seniors’ swallowing and dietetic needs.

16.           We are similarly expanding the roles of optometrists, through partnerships between public healthcare institutions (PHIs) and community eye clinics. Under this model, trained optometrists manage patients with stable and less complex eye conditions, such as cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, and under established care protocols and clinical pathways. This enables optometrists to play a greater role, while improving access to eye care for patients in the community.

Flexible and Agile Training System

17.           And finally, we are also transforming training processes for healthcare professionals, so that our workforce can adapt quickly to new and expanded roles, and pick up the tasks as fast as they can. MOH is working with our universities and polytechnics, as well as our PHIs to create more flexible, modular work-study training programmes for nurses and allied health professionals.

18.           Two key features of these training programmes are that the training will be conducted on the job as far as possible, and that the modules are what we call ‘stackable’. And this means healthcare professionals can possibly be deployed to your workplaces earlier, and continue to learn while working and contributing. Over the course of your careers, you can be trained to perform specific higher-level tasks over several years, and then accumulate these credits to achieve a higher qualification and facilitate you taking on higher-level jobs.

19.           With an increasing number of seniors with multiple and complex chronic medical conditions, this is an important direction to take to efficiently impart the necessary skills in the care team to meet the needs of patients. It is about maintaining high standards, while preserving the integrity of each discipline, and injecting flexibility and agility into our training system. So these are the three big things we are going to focus on in the coming years, with regard to healthcare manpower.

Conclusion

20.           As we implement all these changes, one thing must always remain unchanged. That is, the success of healthcare transformation ultimately hinges on the ethos and passion of all of you, of all healthcare professionals.

21.           This ethos flows first from a deep sense of professionalism and purpose. I am not a healthcare professional. I have been the Health Minister for six years, but I think this is somewhat contagious, and I can really feel it. It  needs to be constantly nurtured by the Ministry of Health, by public healthcare clusters, by all private institutions, by professional boards and councils, by trade unions, by our IHLs, to develop the policies, systems and frameworks to maintain standards and develop the professions. Just as importantly, it needs continuous nourishment from patients and members of the public, who appreciate and value the services of healthcare professionals. When healthcare professionals feel appreciated and respected, they feel proud of what they do, and more will join us. And more will do even better.

22.           This year, we have over 5,100 award recipients from 49 healthcare institutions across Singapore. When I first accepted this award and saw 5,000 award recipients, I asked how long is the ceremony? Our Superstar winners reflect the diversity of our healthcare system, spanning from acute and community care sectors, and both public and private healthcare employers.

23.           All of you have been instrumental in our efforts to drive improvements in clinical outcomes, embrace technology to enhance care delivery, and shape a healthcare system that is more efficient and patient-centred. We always talk about the healthcare system, but being in a system for some time, we realise the system is made up of every single individual, every single healthcare professional doing your best, working with others, often making a lot of sacrifices in various aspects. But somehow we must also have the policies, the right processes, the right management, to bring everybody’s professionalism and passion together. And then the system will work for Singapore to solve our biggest social challenge which is ageing. So thank you for flying the healthcare flag high, and congratulations to all our award winners! Thank you.