Details on Assisted Living Government Sandbox Initiative

Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui asked the Minister for Health (a) whether details on the assisted living Government sandbox initiative can be shared, including its key objectives and measures of success; (b) what are the projected scalability prospects of this assisted living model; and (c) what are the anticipated manpower needs to ensure that caregivers with the right skills can be hired quickly to support this model.

We launched the Shared Stay-in Senior Care Services sandbox in September 2023 to test out more ways to enable seniors to age in the community and support families with caregiving, without resorting to institutional care as a default.

The sandbox provides work pass flexibilities for participating companies to try out different models of manpower deployment to senior care.  The caregivers need not be professional healthcare workers. Eligible companies can arrange for the training and tap on the Agency for Integrated Care’s Learning Network or Community Care Training Grant to train their workers in caregiving.

Companies have been onboarded since the start of this year and, to date, four participating companies are serving about 200 clients. We will review the scheme at its one-year mark, before determining the next steps.