Measures in National Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy that Are Yet to Be Rolled Out and Implementation Timelines for Them

10 Assoc Prof Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Health in light of the Ministry's statement on 19 September 2024 that findings from the National Youth Mental Health Study affirmed the approach under the National Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy to tackling youth mental health issues and that many of the measures under the Strategy are already in place while others will be progressively rolled out across the next few years (a) what are the measures that are yet to be rolled out; and (b) what is timetable for their introduction.

Mr Speaker: Who from the Ministry of Health is taking this question?

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, we will be designating first-stop touchpoints to enable individuals to receive support early and to facilitate access to higher-tier services when needed. For instance, a new National Mental Health Helpline and Textline service will be introduced in mid-2025 to offer psychological first aid for those facing mental distress. Those who require additional support, including crisis management, will be referred to the relevant services.

Our other upcoming measures include the Positive Use Guide on Technology and Social Media, which will be ready in the first half of 2025. It will guide healthy and positive uses of technology and social media, and provide recommendations to mitigate their potential negative impact.

In addition, the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) are studying whether further requirements, such as age assurance, are needed to prevent children and youths from accessing age-inappropriate content on relevant online communication services.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Razwana.

Assoc Prof Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim (Nominated Member): I thank the Ministry for its effort in advancing mental health support and I appreciate the response, especially on the age verification tools. I was just wondering whether there is any initiative to move forward, in terms of partnering with social media and tech companies, especially in terms of teletherapy platforms? Because there seems to be a lot of such platforms coming up as well, where you have layperson giving advice that may not be appropriate, especially for young children and young people.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Assoc Prof Razwana for the questions. Actually, her query has two different parts. Are we partnering with social media companies and tech companies? The answer is yes. As we develop our various codes of practice, as well as regulatory frameworks around various aspects of social media, we do indeed partner very closely with the social media and tech companies. This is the work on the MDDI side of the House. It is independent from the mental health strategy.

The separate issue is then the use of telemedicine and teletherapy services. Under the MOH, we are indeed studying this and looking to see how we can use these types of technologies to better reach out to persons in need and this is not just about mental health, but there are a whole variety of indications for telemedicine services and we have a framework for assessing the governance, the safety, the approach towards telemedicine.

And so, the social media companies or the tech companies may well be a platform through which telemedicine services are delivered, but actually, it is the service provider then that we need to work with for the assessment of those services.