WELCOME ADDRESS BY DR JANIL PUTHUCHEARY, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF HEALTH, AT THE NHG22 WALK.RUN.CYCLE MOVEMENT PHYSICAL FINALE EVENT

Mr Tan Tee How

Chairman, National Healthcare Group (NHG)

Professor Philip Choo

Group CEO, NHG

Ladies and gentlemen,

1.             Good morning! I am delighted to join you here today. For many of you, this is not just a milestone event for NHG, but a personal milestone. It marks the successful completion of your commitment to walk, run or cycle 50 kilometres over the past three months. As of today, collectively, together, you have clocked an impressive 85,000km. You deserve a big round of applause for yourselves.

2.             The initial target was set at 2,200 km, in celebration of National Healthcare Group’s 22^nd anniversary. I think that itself deserves some congratulations. NHG has for over two decades been delivering quality healthcare, investing in medical research, piloting innovative care models in close collaboration with partners, patients and caregivers, as well as developing our pipeline for the future healthcare workers of Singapore. Thank you for your significant contributions to Singapore’s healthcare landscape over all these years.

3.             This Walk.Run.Cycle Movement is an important and creative approach to empower individuals to lead active and healthy lives. Let me just talk a little bit about what I see as the elements of its success.

Nudging Towards an Active Lifestyle

4.             First, you use a bundle of nudges to help participants get active. You register for the challenge, and as a participant, you commit to exercising regularly. You are setting clear goals for yourself of completing 50 kilometres across three months, and you have a visual indication of your progress on your fitness app. This allows you to plan your exercise sessions and some participants can break down the sessions into manageable targets, walking 500 metres at a time, or if you are feeling like you can challenge yourself, you can set yourself a much larger target. The prospect of receiving a Finisher Medal also helps to incentivise many participants to complete the 50km challenge!

5.             Nudging the residents towards a healthier lifestyle habit is very much central to what we are planning to do with our Healthier SG strategy. We want to encourage our residents to co-develop a Health Plan together with their family doctor, commit to actions that can help them achieve specific health goals, such as participating in physical activity programmes like the National Steps Challenge, your Walk.Run.Cycle Movement, or adjusting their diets.

Strengthening Motivation with Social Support 

6.             Second factor that I think contributes to the success is that you are able to invite your family members and friends to participate in your Walk.Run.Cycle Movement. You can form teams with colleagues, if you are feeling like you want to be competitive for the races. Peer encouragement is a powerful motivating force. That is why the community is so important to support individuals to achieve better health. NHG’s Communities of Care network, connecting residents to resources in the neighbourhood, exemplifies this idea. With Healthier SG, we are working with partners to provide a wide range of lifestyle programmes that loved ones and friends can enjoy together.

7.             We are also empowering you, the healthcare clusters, including NHG, to step up as regional health managers. You will build relationships, coordinate activities, and provide support across our community partners, tailoring programmes specific to the needs of your population. Over time, you will gain an in-depth understanding of your residents’ needs and work with partners to strengthen the environmental and social support for our residents.

Achieving Health Goals Using Digital Tools

8.             Last, I think of the three factors of success I am going to talk about today is that you leverage digital health tools. You have a virtual challenge where you can use any GPS-enabled fitness tracking device to clock your distances and it is an example, one small example of the important role that we will see for digital health technologies in sustaining healthy behaviours for our population and we hope to leverage such tools even more. So we hope that people don’t have to wait for a Walk.Run.Cycle Movement to challenge themselves. We want people to take charge of their own health, to improve their physical activity level anytime.

Closing

9.             So to all the participants here, I congratulate you for completing this fitness challenge. This may be a finale event, but I hope it marks the beginning, or a continuation of your health journey! And once again, a special congratulations to all the staff and management of NHG on your 22^nd anniversary.

10.           I thank you all for joining us here this morning and I hope you will enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you very much.