Foreign-trained Medical Specialists with Provisional Licence to Practise in Singapore

Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Health (a) how many non-Singaporean foreign-trained medical specialists have been given a provisional licence to practise in Singapore's public hospitals over the past five years; (b) how many have been eventually granted full registration with the Specialists Accreditation Board; and (c) for those granted full registration, how many continue to serve the public hospitals and how many have left for private practice.

Non-Singaporean foreign-trained medical specialists must first be accredited by the Specialists Accreditation Board before they are conditionally registered by the Singapore Medical Council to practise. Under conditional registration, they are required to practise under supervision for a period of two years in an SMC-approved institution before they can apply for full registration. The Singapore Medical Council granted conditional registration to 375 non-Singaporean foreign-trained specialists to practise in the public sector Restructured Hospitals for the five years since 2010. One hundred and twenty-one specialists in this group have successfully completed their supervised practice under conditional registration and were granted full registration. Of this group who achieved full registration, all were still practising in the Restructured Hospitals as at end December 2014.