Press Releases
Expanding Healthcare Capacity and Transforming the Healthcare Workforce
7 March 2025
As our population ages, the demand for healthcare services and manpower will continue to increase. The Ministry of Health (MOH) will continue to transform and strengthen our healthcare workforce, in tandem with capacity expansion.
Expansion of Healthcare Capacity
2. Since 2020, we have expanded healthcare capacity by over 6,300 beds.
a) Over 1,200 acute hospital beds were added, comprising:
i. Opening of Woodlands Health.
ii. Bed additions across other hospitals, including Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Sengkang General Hospital and Alexandra Hospital.
iii. Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Emergency/ National Neuroscience Institute building, which opened with 80 beds in December 2024, and will add 70 more beds when fully opened in 2025.
b) Mobile Inpatient Care @ Home (MIC@Home) rolled out 200 beds.
c) 600 community hospital beds were added, including those at the newly opened Woodlands Health Campus and Tan Tock Seng Hospital-Integrated Care Hub.
d) More than 10 nursing homes were opened, adding over 4,300 nursing home beds.
3. From 2025 to 2030, we plan to add another 13,600 beds to the healthcare system. This includes adding about 2,800 public acute and community hospital beds to the over 12,000 public hospital beds today.
a) New SGH Elective Care Centre will open by 2027, with 300 beds.
b) Changi General Hospital will be renovated and add 160 beds by 2027.
c) Sengkang General Hospital will add about 140 beds progressively from 2026.
d) Woodlands Health will continue to ramp-up their bed capacity, adding close to 400 more beds by 2030.
e) Alexandra Hospital will be redeveloped, and will progressively open from 2028, bringing its total capacity to 1,300 beds by the time it fully opens.
f) New Eastern General Hospital Campus at Bedok North, comprising a new integrated general and community hospital will progressively open from 2029, and add about 1,400 beds when fully opened.
g) St Andrew’s Community Hospital will set up a new community hospital, providing rehabilitative and transitional care in Bedok in 2025. It will have 240 beds, out of which 140 are new Transitional Care Facilities (TCF) beds.
h) 10,600 nursing home beds will be added by 2030.
4. From 2030 to 2040, both the SGH and National University Hospital (NUH) campuses would have undergone major redevelopment. Phase 1 of the SGH Campus redevelopment work is ongoing, with planning for Phase 2 underway. The redevelopment of the entire NUH Kent Ridge Campus has commenced and is planned to meet the growing healthcare needs in the Western region. The NUH redevelopment will progressively replace older structures, improve land use efficiency and increase hospital capacity. By 2033, NUH will replace half of the 1,200 existing beds and add about 100 new beds. By 2038, the remaining beds will also be replaced, and another 200 beds will be added to reach total bed capacity of 1,500. The emergency departments, operating theatres, and specialist outpatient clinics will also be enhanced during this redevelopment.
5. We have also commenced planning for a new integrated general and community hospital in Tengah Town to serve the growing population in the Western region. Tengah General and Community Hospital will be operated by the National University Health System and is targeted to be ready in the early 2030s.
6. With the addition of the new Tengah General and Community Hospital and the Eastern General Hospital Campus, there will be a total of 13 public acute hospitals and 12 community hospitals[1] in the early 2030s.
7. To further augment our hospital capacities, five Transitional Care Facilities (TCF) currently operate at various locations nationwide, offering a total of about 700 beds to receive medically stable patients from the public healthcare institutions who need time to recover, and are waiting to finalise their long-term care arrangements. Since the first TCF started its operations in 2022, TCFs have alleviated the public healthcare institutions’ load by receiving about 5,300 patients in 2024.
Growing our polyclinic network
8. There are 26 polyclinics as at end-2024. We are on track to expand our network of polyclinics to 32 by 2030.
New Polyclinics
Five polyclinics, located in Bidadari, Kaki Bukit, Serangoon, Tengah and Yew Tee, are scheduled to be completed by 2027; and
Two polyclinics, in Bishan and Taman Jurong, are scheduled to be completed by 2030.
Redevelopment of Polyclinics
Six polyclinics will be redeveloped by 2030. They are Bukit Merah[2], Clementi, Jurong, Outram2, Queenstown and Toa Payoh polyclinics.
Mobile Inpatient Care @ Home
9. Since April 2024, MIC@Home has been mainstreamed and offered as part of the public hospitals’ regular services. MIC@Home patients are also supported by subsidies, MediShield Life, MediSave and Integrated Shield Plan coverage, if applicable, no different from a physical inpatient stay at a public hospital.
10. The care that patients receive at home, as well as their care outcomes, is comparable to that received in hospitals. MIC@Home provides patients with holistic clinical care at home, including intravenous medication and blood tests, with a combination of teleconsultations and home visits.
11. The MIC@Home programme has benefitted more than 2,500 patients, amounting to more than 12,700 hospital bed-days since it was mainstreamed in April 2024.
[NEW] Recognising Family Medicine as a Specialty
12. Family doctors play a critical role in anchoring care in the community. Given the rising importance of Family Medicine in improving our population health, we will formally recognise Family Medicine as a specialty in Singapore. This acknowledges the expertise that well-trained family physicians are able to provide for patients with complex care needs across different age groups. Details on the entry criteria, training requirements and implementation timeline will be shared later this year.
13. The recognition of Family Medicine as a specialty will support the professional development of family doctors. Other jurisdictions such as Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia also recognise Family Medicine as a medical specialty. This move signals a fuller appreciation of the depth of knowledge and skills required in Family Medicine, and aims to encourage more Family Physicians to pursue advanced training.
14. With their broad-based skillsets and long-term relationships with patients, Family Medicine Specialists would enable more patients with complex care needs to receive comprehensive care in the community, even when care across different medical specialties may be required.
15. The formal recognition of Family Medicine as a specialty comes after the Family Medicine fraternity in Singapore, including the College of Family Physicians Singapore and Chapter of Family Medicine Physicians under the Academy of Medicine Singapore, with the support of MOH, had its joint proposal approved by the Specialists Accreditation Board[3], to recognise doctors with advanced family medicine training and other requisite qualifications as Family Medicine Specialists.
16. Doctors with relevant postgraduate qualifications in family medicine and experience can continue to be accredited as Family Physicians by the Family Physicians Accreditation Board.
[NEW] Medical Workforce Transformation
17. MOH takes a comprehensive approach in planning the medical workforce to meet the long-term healthcare needs of Singaporeans, based on demographic trends, care needs and other factors such as workload and planned increases in healthcare capacity.
18. Beyond specialists which comprise about 40% of doctors, we will increasingly need doctors of varying skillsets, including Family Physicians and Hospital Clinicians to meet the healthcare needs of Singaporeans.
19. As part of MOH’s ongoing efforts to adapt healthcare delivery for an ageing population, manage more complex healthcare demands and to better care for older patients who may present with multiple health conditions requiring simultaneous management, we will be transforming our medical workforce, starting in the public acute hospitals.
20. Currently, doctors in our public acute hospitals typically work in teams to care for patients. While we already have specialists who are skilled in managing specific organ systems, doctors will need to increasingly lead care teams in coordinating and managing cross-specialty issues to consolidate care suited to the care needs of their patients. These doctors, who will anchor care as the Principal Doctor, may also include Hospital Clinicians[4] trained with a broader breadth of expertise.
21. Patients will benefit from holistic care coordinated by a care team, led by a team leader who can tap on the collective expertise of the team to meet the patients’ care needs. They will continue to have access to the appropriate experts and resources when needed. With this, patients with complex medical needs could potentially reduce the number of referrals and hospital visits.
22. We are currently working with the public healthcare clusters on the implementation plans and will share more details when ready.
[NEW] Registration of Psychologists
23. The increased focus on mental health and evolving landscape of psychological practices in Singapore have led to changes in how services are delivered. For example, more psychologists now practise beyond the traditional clinical settings and have moved into private and community sectors.
24. MOH conducts periodic assessment of healthcare services and professions to monitor their risk profiles within an evolving healthcare landscape, and consider additional safeguards, where necessary. This ongoing process, in conjunction with our engagements with key stakeholders such as the Singapore Psychological Society, practitioners and sector agencies, have surfaced concerns over client safety as more psychologists practise in the private and community sectors.
25. Given the emerging challenges and opportunities in mental health care, we will be working towards registering psychologists in Singapore, focusing on those providing direct care, involving higher-risk assessments and interventions across various sectors.
26. Psychologists who wish to practise in Singapore will have to ensure that they meet these requisite standards by law. Overall, we expect this move to raise professional standards, ensure patient safety, and instil greater confidence among those seeking psychological services.
27. An inter-agency implementation committee consisting of practitioners, regulators and service providers from both the public and private sectors has been established to oversee this process. Further details will be announced in due course.
[NEW] Advertising of Services by Selected Professionals
28. To prevent the public from being misled by services that are not licensed by MOH, currently the Healthcare Services Act (HCSA) prohibits providers of such services from advertising that they are able to “treat” a medical condition. This prohibition applies to both regulated and unregulated healthcare professionals who are not HCSA licensees and operate their own clinic.
29. In view of the standards and governance in place for professions that are regulated by a Professional Act or under the oversight of a professional association, we will review the HCSA advertising controls to enable professionals listed in the First Schedule of the Allied Health Professions Act (such as clinical psychologists and speech therapists), as well as other selected Acts (such as Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners) to advertise their services in a safe and appropriate manner, even though these services are not licensable under HCSA. This is in view that their services carry a low risk to the public, as there are existing and clear standards of practice set by their professional associations.
30. These professionals will still have to adhere to the advertising requirements under HCSA, which include controls on content and the media to ensure accuracy of claims. For example, their advertisements must not contain exaggerated or inaccurate claims, such that they can mislead the public to consume unwarranted treatments. These professionals also cannot claim to treat medical conditions that are not within their scope of practice. More details will be shared when ready.
Updates on Recruitment and Retention Efforts of Healthcare Workers
31. Nurses form the largest segment of our local healthcare workforce, numbering around 50,000. Post COVID-19, we have stepped up our local and foreign recruitment efforts. Last year, we recruited another 3,800 new nurses from local and foreign sources.
32. Locally, nursing continues to be a desirable profession, with one in 20 Singaporeans choosing to study nursing. We have also increased our annual local intake by about 20% over the past 10 years, through the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), polytechnics and universities. ITE launched the Work-Study Diploma for nurses in 2024, providing an attractive pathway for Enrolled Nurses to attain Registered Nurse accreditation mostly through on-the-job training.
33. In 2024, we introduced the Award for Nurses’ Grace Excellence and Loyalty (ANGEL) scheme to support long-term attraction and retention of nurses in the public healthcare sector. In addition to the 24,000 public healthcare institution nurses who joined ANGEL last year, an additional 2,900 nurses in community care organisations and Social Service Agencies have since been onboarded, of whom approximately 500 eligible nurses will be receiving their recognition payouts in June this year.
34. MOH regularly reviews staff salaries in the public healthcare sector to ensure the sector continues to offer strong career opportunities. Most recently, we announced that 37,000 allied health professionals, pharmacists, and administrative, ancillary and support staff can expect increases to their monthly salaries. Details will be announced in the middle of 2025.
35. Doctors is another key profession. Over the past ten years, we have increased intakes across the three medical schools from about 440 in 2014 to 550 in 2024. To meet our population’s healthcare needs, we will need to supplement locally trained doctors with Singaporeans and foreigners trained overseas. More recently, we have added nine more foreign medical schools to the list of medical schools whose basic medical degrees are recognised in Singapore.
[1] Currently, there are 11 public acute hospitals including general hospitals and specialty centres with acute care inpatient facilities (excluding psychiatric hospital), and 10 public and VWO community hospitals.
[2] Bukit Merah and Outram Polyclinics will be consolidated into one polyclinic after the redevelopment.
[3] In Singapore, the Specialists Accreditation Board (SAB) determines the qualifications, experience and other conditions, as well as the training programmes, which are recognised for accreditation as specialists under the Medical Registration Act. SAB also determines the introduction of new medical specialties/subspecialties in Singapore. Accredited medical specialists are eligible to apply to the Singapore Medical Council to be registered on the Register of Specialists.
[4] The Hospital Clinician scheme was introduced since 2020 to develop doctors with advanced capabilities, enabling them to anchor hospital care in a role complementary to specialists.