Statistics on Return to Nursing Programme and Outreach Efforts

9 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Health (a) in the past five years, what is the annual average number of years of service among nurses who have left the service; (b) what are the efforts to encourage former nurses who have left service to return to nursing; and (c) how many former nurses have re-joined nursing under the Return to Nursing Programme since the programme was launched in 2010.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Nurses who left the public healthcare sector in the past five years spent an average of seven years in service. This includes nurses who left to join the private healthcare and community care sectors as well as those who left nursing practice.

MOH welcomes all local non-practising nurses to return to the healthcare workforce. To facilitate their return, we have in place a Return to Nursing (RTN) scheme, which includes a refresher course.

Over the years, we have enhanced the scheme. For instance, we have adopted a Place-and-Train format for the scheme where returning nurses first secure employment with their employers before commencing the refresher course. As a result, nurses are paid a salary while attending the course and the cost of the course is jointly borne by employers and the Government, and not the nurses.

In the last 10 years, about 120 nurses have benefited from the RTN scheme. Overall, about 400 local nurses have returned to practice annually¹.