Public Awareness of Advance Care Planning and End-of-Life Issues and Measures to Boost Manpower for Palliative Care Sector

Ms Kuik Shiao-Yin asked the Minister for Health (a) what strategies are being employed to promote public awareness of advance care planning and end-of-life issues; and (b) what short-term and long-term measures are in place to boost the numbers and skill level of manpower, especially local manpower, for the palliative care sector.

MOH recognises the importance of end-of-life issues, such as Advance Care Planning (ACP) and palliative care services, in supporting the needs of our ageing population. We are working comprehensively to raise awareness of these issues.

We partner community organisations to reach out to the general public on end-of-life issues in the heartlands. For instance, MOH recently supported the Both Sides Now campaign organised by Lien Foundation and Ang Chin Moh Foundation. The mobile art exhibitions and performances gave visitors an opportunity to reflect and share about the topics of living and dying. We also supported the Singapore Hospice Council’s three-year Community Outreach Programme, which aims to share with the general public about palliative care services through grassroots events and outreach activities.

The Agency for Integrated Care is working with Voluntary Welfare Organisation (VWO) providers in the community care and social care sectors to train their staff and volunteers to be advocates of ACP. These advocates will introduce the idea of ACP to clients and their families in the community to raise awareness of ACP. We have also trained more than 1,000 healthcare professionals as ACP facilitators to guide patients and their families in discussions on end-of-life and ACP issues.

To support the increase in demand for inpatient and home palliative care services, we aim to double the number of doctors, nurses and medical social workers in the palliative care sector from around 150 in 2012 to 300 by 2020. We plan to do so through three main areas.

Firstly, we have enhanced the funding model for home palliative care from 1 July 2014 to give providers greater certainty in planning ahead, including recruiting additional manpower to expand their services.

Secondly, we are also supporting efforts to enhance the training of our family physicians in palliative care. The Division of Graduate Medical Studies at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine launched a Graduate Diploma in Palliative Medicine for doctors last year. The

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course trains doctors, especially family physicians, to better deliver palliative care to patients both in the clinic and home settings.

Lastly, to help with the retention of staff, MOH has also rolled out several initiatives across the Intermediate and Long-Term Care (ILTC) sector, such as funding MOH-subvented providers, to raise staff salaries and enhancing subsidies to support the training and development of staff.

With these initiatives, we have seen the number of doctors, nurses and medical social workers in the sector increased by a third between 2012 and 2014, from 150 to 205. We will continue to monitor the growth of manpower in the palliative care sector to ensure that palliative care services are able to grow as planned to serve our ageing population.