Overall number of nurses in public healthcare

5 July 2021

This article has been migrated from an earlier version of the site and may display formatting inconsistencies.

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan
MP for Pioneer SMC

Question No. 742
To ask the Minister for Health for each of the years from 2010 to 2020 (a) how many persons are working as nurses, and in allied, ancillary and administrative roles respectively in the public healthcare sector; and (b) what is the breakdown for such persons in terms of whether they are in full-time or part-time employment, educational qualifications, age, gender and number who are Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans.

Written Answer

From 2013 to 2020, the overall number of nurses in the public healthcare¹ sector increased from 19,180 to 23,050. Over the same period, the number of Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) increased from 3,990 to 5,400 while the number of Administrative and Ancillary (AA) staff increased from 14,600 to 18,080.

Due to changes in data definition, we are only able to provide the breakdown of staff groups by their age, gender, citizenship status, and highest educational qualifications from 2013 onwards. Data on whether they are working full-time or part-time is available for registered nurses and AHPs from 2014 and 2018 onwards respectively, as follows:

Table 1 - Number of nurses in the public healthcare sector (2013-2020)

Table 2 - Number of AHPs in the public healthcare sector (2013-2020)

Table 3 - Number of AA staff in the public healthcare sector (2013-2020)

[1] Includes hospitals, polyclinics, medical and specialty centres, and excludes cluster-run community hospitals.