Profile and Allocation of Additional 30,000 Healthcare Workers Required by 2020

19 Ms Tin Pei Ling asked the Minister for Health of the additional 30,000 healthcare workers required by 2020 (a) how many will be from the Singaporean Core; (b) how many are expected to come through the professional conversion programme; (c) how many are expected to be retired healthcare workers; (d) how many will be allocated to the eldercare sector; (e) what will be the allocation of these workers broken down by roles; and (f) what will be the expected increase in annual manpower expenditure.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: In tandem with the expected increase in demand for healthcare services that comes with an ageing population, we projected that an additional 30,000 healthcare workers could be needed between 2015 and 2020. Over 10,000 of the additional healthcare manpower demand is projected to come from the aged care sector, while the remaining will come from the acute and primary care sectors. About 50% of the new jobs are projected to be professionals, managers, executives and technicians positions, which include doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and managerial and administrative staff, such as centre managers and operations and administrative executives.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has been and will continue to grow a strong local core to anchor our healthcare sector. Locals made up about 75% of the healthcare workforce in 2015. MOH has been making efforts on a few fronts to attract, develop and retain the local healthcare workforce.

First, we have expanded intakes at local medical and nursing schools to attract more young Singaporeans to join the healthcare sector. Between 2012 and 2015, local medical and nursing intakes have increased by 29% and 17% respectively. In addition, the four allied health profession courses in Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Diagnostic Radiography and Radiation Therapy have transited from diploma courses in Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) to four-year degree programmes at the Singapore Institute of Technology in 2016, and the intake will grow over time.

Apart from attracting fresh school leavers, we have put in place Healthcare Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) for mid-career professionals to acquire relevant training to join the healthcare sector as nurses and allied health professionals. Since the commencement of the PCPs, more than 1,000 PCP candidates have undergone healthcare training. To bring in more mid-career entrants into the community care sector, the Agency for Integrated Care has also facilitated a series of manpower recruitment initiatives for the sector, which include organising recruitment fairs, introducing the Community Care Traineeship Programme to train new local support care staff for their new roles as well as the Senior Management Associate Scheme to train mid-career talents to take on managerial and operational positions in the sector. We will continue to provide more training pathways to enable more mid-career professionals to join the healthcare sector.

Second, we are leveraging SkillsFuture (SF) initiatives to support professional development and capability building in the healthcare workforce. MOH launched the Healthcare SF Study Awards in June 2016 to encourage skills acquisition in the areas of aged care, healthcare information technology and data analytics, and healthcare design, organisation and delivery. NYP is also rolling out a new Earn and Learn Programme in gerontology nursing for nursing graduates to deepen their skills and knowledge to provide aged care in the community.

Third, we seek to better retain healthcare workers. We have strengthened career pathways for clinical and support care staff across the public healthcare sector through more upgrading opportunities and better career progression and are making efforts to increase workforce longevity in the healthcare sector. Nearly all eligible public healthcare staff were offered re-employment upon reaching age 62. The public healthcare clusters have also extended the re-employment age of public healthcare workers to age 67 since 1 July 2016, one year ahead of the statutory change. We are pursuing efforts to redesign jobs through the use of assistive equipment, such as patient mobility aides and hoists, as well as encouraging healthcare institutions to offer more flexible work arrangements, to enable older staff to continue working.

In parallel with efforts to increase the supply of local healthcare workers, we are stepping up productivity efforts to reduce manpower demand through improving workflows, redesigning roles and leveraging technology. Our public healthcare institutions are rolling out more self-service formats and training patients, caregivers and volunteers to support the healthcare workforce in care delivery. With productivity efforts, we will strive to keep manpower expenditure growth sustainable so as to maintain affordability of healthcare services for Singaporeans.