Medical Specialist Accreditation

19 January 2015

Question No. 399

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament

Dr Benedict Tan
Nominated MP

Question:

To ask the Minister for Health in view of the acute shortage of doctors in certain specialties in our public hospitals and the opening of new public hospitals in the coming years, whether he will consider introducing a conditional specialist accreditation scheme that accredits foreign medical specialists to practice in Singapore, on the condition that they practice only in public hospitals and in specialties where we have an acute shortage.

Answer:

1        The Specialists Accreditation Board and the Singapore Medical Council already have such a scheme in place.  Foreign medical specialists who are recruited by the public sector hospitals must first be accredited by the Specialists Accreditation Board before they are conditionally registered with the Singapore Medical Council.  Conditional registration requires such specialists to fulfil a supervision period in an approved institution.  All the public hospitals are approved institutions to hire such specialists, and they can make use of this scheme to manage their medical manpower requirements.  Majority of these specialists can be fully registered upon satisfactorily completing the conditions of their conditional registration.  However, a small minority will have other restrictions or conditions imposed on their registration, and these will remain conditionally registered.  This scheme is applicable to all specialties.