Family Doctors - Leading the Way to Better Health

1.     Every year on this day, we celebrate World Family Doctor Day and recognise family doctors’ contributions to the health and well-being of Singaporeans, and the progress made in Family Medicine. This year, the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) has chosen the theme “Family doctors – leading the way to better health”.

2.    The cornerstone of a sustainable healthcare system with good population health is strong primary care. Primary care plays an increasingly critical role as our healthcare system continues to evolve. We envisage our primary care landscape to transform in tandem into one integrated primary care system, linked with hospitals as well as community partners.

3.    This year’s theme encapsulates the important mission family doctors have to lead the way in transforming our care to meet the evolving needs of Singaporeans.  Our general practitioners (GPs), polyclinics and community partners are collectively driving this transformation to bring more personalised care closer to home.

4.    Our family doctors have embarked on the journey of improving the health of all Singaporeans in several domains.  To help anchor care in the community, GPs in the Primary Care Networks, Family Medicine clinics and polyclinics are at the forefront of transforming the way chronic disease management is provided, with care coordinated through a primary care team. GPs participating in the Community Health Assistance Scheme (CHAS) also help to keep the population healthy by providing cardiovascular and cancer screening through the Screen for Life programme. The number of CHAS GP clinics have grown from 550 clinics in 2012 to over 1,000 clinics in 2017.

5.    For patients who require shared care with specialists, polyclinic doctors are working closely with the public hospitals to co-design care protocols that provide holistic and more seamless care for patients with complex conditions.

6.    In the midst of these changes, the principle tenets of Family Medicine to provide holistic, person-focused community-based care remain unchanged and are increasingly pertinent as our population ages. It is therefore important that more doctors be upskilled and trained in Family Medicine, to step up to meet the growing breadth of primary care practice.

7.    We would like to express our deep appreciation to all family doctors whose dedicated service provides holistic, coordinated and good care for our people. As we commemorate World Family Doctor Day, the Ministry of Health, Agency for Integrated Care, College of Family Physicians Singapore, Health Promotion Board, National Healthcare Group Polyclinics, National University Polyclinics and SingHealth Polyclinics would like to encourage all Singaporeans to value and partner your regular family doctor for your healthcare needs. We wish all our family doctors a happy World Family Doctor Day!

MINISTRY OF HEALTH

19 MAY 2018