SINGAPORE – An entire healthcare ecosystem is springing into action to equip nurses with new skills and prepare them for future roles as patients grow older and more receive long-term and palliative care in hospices, nursing homes, hospitals and at home.
One initiative, established in January, is the Nursing Home-Nursing Professional Development Workgroup. It brings together nurse leaders from nursing homes and community and acute care hospitals to drive skills development in the long-term care sector.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced the initiative at the Nurses’ Merit Award ceremony held at Shangri-La Singapore on July 6.
Ong, who is also the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, said that while his ministry has set a target of training 10,000 nurses and healthcare workers in generalist palliative care by 2030, the “upskilling movement is far larger than I envisaged”.
“During my recent visit to the National University Hospital, I found out that the hospital alone is targeting to train 3,100 nurses in generalist palliative care, and some institutions have set up in-house training programmes to equip their nurses with generalist skills,” he said.
He added that several public healthcare institutions are helping to train nurses in nursing homes in end-of-life care, advance care planning and preferred plan of care.
“The success of this transformation journey will ultimately rest not just on policies or programmes, but more so on people – on nurses who are prepared to take on new roles, build new capabilities and lead change on the ground.”
Citing the example of a healthcare team that fulfilled a dying elderly man’s wish to spend his final moments at home in Ong’s constituency – he is anchor minister for Sembawang GRC – despite the logistical challenges of the transfer, the minister said this is just one instance of the evolving roles of healthcare and nursing as Singapore ages.
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