Interim Caregiver Service Update

Mr Chen Show Mao asked the Minister for Health (a) how many patients have benefited from the Interim Caregiver Service to-date; (b) how many people are currently on the waitlist and how long is the waitlist; (c) how many instances have there been where

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patients who qualify for the service have turned down the service and why; and (d) how many caregivers will there be when the service is made available this year to all restructured hospitals and community hospitals, and how many patients can this number of caregivers support.

The Interim Caregiver Service (ICS) aims to support patients and their caregivers in the transition from hospital back home. Under this service, we provide patients who require help with personal care, a caregiver who can support them in their activities of daily living when they return home, for a period of about two weeks. This service helps families work out the long-term caregiving arrangements for the patients, such as waiting for new foreign domestic workers to arrive.

MOH started the interim caregiver service as a pilot at Changi General Hospital with NTUC Eldercare, a social enterprise, and Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society, a voluntary welfare organisation, in March 2013. This pilot has since been extended to include six acute hospitals and four community hospitals.

The ICS has benefited close to 700 patients thus far. Over 60% of the patients are able to receive the service on the actual day of discharge or the very next day while over 80% do so within three days. Nevertheless, some 60 patients considered the service but had turned down the service due to a number of reasons, such as families deciding to take care of the patients themselves and the families' ability to put in place care arrangements earlier than expected.

The number of interim caregivers is expected to grow to close to 100 by July 2014, which can potentially serve up to 130 patients a month. With the success of the pilot, MOH will encourage more providers to start the service over the next few months.