Latest news with #ActiveAgeing
CNA
an hour ago
- Health
- CNA
PAP Community Foundation to open more active ageing, senior care centres
More Active Ageing centres and Senior Care centres are expected to open in Singapore, as the PAP Community Foundation looks to expand its eldercare services. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong says that as the population gets older, the government will do more to provide care for seniors, but it needs the help of partners like PCF. He was speaking at the PCF Family Day. Jeraldine Yap with more.
Straits Times
6 days ago
- Health
- Straits Times
More nurses to anchor care in community settings as Singapore's population ages
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Minister for Health and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Ong Ye Kung speaks at the Nurses' Merit Award ceremony in Shangri-La Hotel, on July 7. SINGAPORE - More nurses will be trained to anchor care in community care settings, take on leadership roles in nursing homes as well as delivering end-of-life care in the community to cope with a rapidly aging population, said Mr Ong Ye Kung, Health Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Polices. 'If community care is effective… I think we will be able to detect health concerns as early as possible. And if we can detect (them) early, the conditions will be less severe, intervention will be as simple as possible,' he said. He was speaking at the 2025 nurses' merit award held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Orange Grove Road on July 7. There, he conferred the awards on 141 nurses who had performed exceptionally well and contributed to raising the nursing profession. Three nursing roles will be scaled up to strengthen care in the community, where there is a growing need, including nurses at community health posts. Right now, some 90 per cent of the Active Ageing Centres (AACs) have Community Health Posts (CHPs), where nurses set up on a weekly basis. Mr Ong said the extensive outreach of the AACs needs to be tapped for preventive or continual care to reach the seniors, through the CHPs. This will complement hospital acute care, strengthen Singapore's preventive care strategy Healthier SG and the work of family doctors. Each day, there are six kidney failure patients and 60 heart attack and stroke patients, and if the CHPs can help those who are unaware of their condition or reluctant to seek help, the numbers can be lowered, he pointed out. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Four golf courses to close by 2035, leaving Singapore with 12 courses Singapore Eligible S'poreans to get up to $850 in cash, up to $450 in MediSave top-ups in August Singapore Construction starts on Cross Island Line Phase 2; 6 MRT stations in S'pore's west ready by 2032 Singapore New SkillsFuture requirements from April 2026 to mandate regular training for adult educators Singapore MPs should not ask questions to 'clock numbers'; focus should be improving S'poreans' lives: Seah Kian Peng Singapore Sequencing and standards: Indranee on role of Leader of the House Asia Australian woman found guilty of all counts in mushroom murders case Singapore Life After... blazing biomedical research trail in S'pore: Renowned scientist breaks new ground at 59 'Nurses in CHPs will need to establish yourselves as the first point of contact for residents with chronic conditions, preventive health needs, or emerging symptoms,' he said. They will be able to conduct assessments, provide health counselling to patients, and ensure that patients are adhering to their health plans prescribed by their Healthier SG doctor. 'They see their Healthier SG doctor maybe once or twice a year. In between, they can see our nurses at CHPs,' said Mr Ong. With training, CHP nurses can also conduct social prescribing (helping patients to improve their health and well being by connecting them to community services) and referrals and manage patients with stable mental health conditions, he said. A system is also needed to provide community nurses with the relevant backend information and advisory support so that they can operate independently, and with as much autonomy as possible, he said, In long-term care, the Health Ministry has been upskilling the nurses in nursing homes to better care for patients to minimise the chances of patients having to move to acute hospitals and back. Now, it wants to strengthen the process by training more nurse clinicians to lead the care in long-term residential care settings. Mr Ong said Nurse Clinicians need to be empowered , particularly Advanced Practice Nurses who are practising at the apex of the profession. MOH is working towards allowing Nurse Clinicians, starting with APNs, to assess and initiate first-line treatments or medications and conduct six-monthly chronic reviews within defined protocols in nursing homes. This will help to minimise hospital admissions and emergency department visits, resulting in fewer transitions, improving quality of care, he explained. Furthermore, more nurses will be trained to deliver end -of-life care in the community. To scale up the three roles, not only will training need to be enhanced, a more flexible regulatory approach will be needed, he said. For example, if the vision is to enhance the role of community nurses to provide more comprehensive care as early and as close to home as possible, then MOH will need need to review the nurses' scope of practice, equip them with advanced skills and create clear patterns or collaborative care. 'If, as regulators, we disallow this evolution of practice, then the needs of an ageing population will not be met,' said Mr Ong. Also, manpower upgrading will be made easier, with working nurses able to take up courses lasting a few weeks or a couple of months, and then applying them at the workplace immediately. The two polytechnics delivering three advanced and specialist diploma programmes in palliative nursing, in both part-time and full-time formats, will be shifting these programmes to a work-study format in 2027, Mr Ong said. On Monday , the 141 nurses who received the merit awards each received a medal to wear on their uniform and a cash prize of $1,000. Nurses at the Nurses' Merit Award ceremony in Shangri-La Hotel, on July 7. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY One of them is Azhar Mohd, a 56-year-old nurse clinician from Singapore General Hospital with 34 years of nursing experience. Based at the hospital's Ambulatory Endoscopy Centre, he has developed training programmes for new endoscopy nurses. He has also been a lecturer for the Specialist Diploma in Endoscopy at Nanyang Polytechnic since 2018. Endoscopy is a procedure in which an instrument is introduced into the body to give a view of its internal parts and look out for diseases. Ms Megawati, 39, a nurse clinician from NUHS Regional Health System Office, has contributed to improving the transitional care for patients moving from the community to nursing homes, which reduced the frequency of their hospital re-admissions. As a community nurse, on any given day, she might be heading to a patient's home to assess for risk of falls or help them manage their chronic issues for instance, or to Community Health Post to do the same. Ms Megawati, a nurse clinician from NUHS Regional Health System Office, heads a team of 11 nurses who are now focusing on helping the residents in Chua Chu Kang with their health. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY 'When you step inside the home, you can see their challenges and how to help them better,' said the mother of two. Ms Megawati, who spent 18 years studying part-time for a Bachelor's degree in nursing that she obtained last year, heads a team of 11 nurses who are now focusing on helping the residents in Chua Chu Kang with their health. Ms Tan Nengping, 61, a senior nurse manager from the Health Promotion Board who leads three school health screening teams is another winner. She led efforts to develop a more efficient system for the equipment and surgical inventory such as swabs for HPB's Youth Preventive Health Service department.
Straits Times
28-05-2025
- Health
- Straits Times
Stronger support for seniors in the community; those seeking care to have one point of contact: MOH
Stronger support for seniors in the community; those seeking care to have one point of contact: MOH SINGAPORE - Plans to ensure seniors have a single point of contact for community care are in the works , as the authorities work on integrating such services for a fast-ageing population, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on May 28. Beyond expanding individual community services, integration will make it easier for families to access services and move between different ones , he said at the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) Community Care Work Plan Seminar 2025. Mr Ong, who was also appointed Coordinating Minister for Social Policies on May 21, laid out the vision for community care. 'It must be a system that every senior can count on, regardless of your health status. When you are well, community care prevents us from falling sick. If we are sick, it supports us to manage the disease and prevent it from progressing,' said Mr Ong. 'If we become frail, it supports our families to take care of us and organises the different services that we need. If our families are unable to take care of us, the system then steps in as a last resort.' The urgency to transform community care is unmistakable. By 2030, Singapore will have one million seniors aged 65 and above, with possibly half of them living with a chronic disease. The number of those who need help with at least one activity of daily living is expected to almost double within a decade, from an estimated 58,000 in 2020 to 100,000 in 2030. More seniors are also expected to be staying alone – from 76,000 in 2023 to 122,000 in 2030. Mr Ong listed three areas of change. Firstly, strong coordination is needed in the community care sector to tie together the various services as they expand. This will mean that seniors who need a combination of services to serve complex needs can move across services easily. Mr Ong said the Health Ministry (MOH) and AIC have reorganised community care into smaller sub-regions. Providers in each region are encouraged to form a network together , under a centre that will be the dedicated point of contact for seniors who need long-term care services. This so-called Integrated Community Care Provider will bring together the four commonly used services, namely those at Active Ageing Centres (AACs), day care services at Senior Care Centres, care at home under the Enhanced Home Personal Care service and rehabilitation at home under Home Therapy. 'To a family and to a senior, they should see it as just one service... with one contact, one coordination point,' said Mr Ong. This way, when a senior falls ill and needs rehabilitation or support services, the provider can help to put together the relevant services to restore him to health, said Mr Ong. If his conditions progress, it may then provide home personal care or other necessary services. When he recovers, he can return to the AAC to lead a more active lifestyle, he said. Secondly, efforts to make commu nity health services more accessible will be stepped up. Mr Ong said he heard from doctors that there are patients in their 40s and 50s seeking help at the hospital because of their diabetes, with a few even suffering from gangrene. Early actions, with a combination of lifestyle adjustments and medication, could have prevented progression of chronic diseases, have prevented the progression of their diseases. These patients could have done something earlier to prevent the progression of their diease, but they either did not know they were sick, or even if they knew and had enrolled in Healthier SG, they did not follow up with their health plan. This is a significant gap which community are can help close, Mr Ong said. 'For (Healthier SG) to be truly successful, we got to go beyond the GPs. The GPs needs to be supported and reinforced by effective community care services.' Mr Ong said the three healthcare clusters have set up community health posts, with about nine out of 10 AACs having one at or near their centres. Nurses at these centres can attend to patients. These posts can do more to help seniors, especially in catering to walk-ins. For instance, they can help seniors enrol in preventive health programme Healthier SG, which pairs each resident with a primary care physician, or follow up with their appointments and provide lifestyle coaching and health advice. Thirdly, outreach to seniors needs to step up, so the authorities will have information on every senior, and no one will die alone at home without anyone knowing. Silver Generation Ambassadors, People Association's volunteers and other volunteers have to work together to visit every household in the community, and share data so that every senior is known, Mr Ong said. He said the political office-holders in his ministry's refreshed team - Dr Koh Poh Koon, Mr Tan Kiat How and Ms Rahayu Mahzam - will all have a role in the community care sector. This includes areas such as manpower, coordination, community health posts and outreach. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
