Speech By Dr Lam Pin Min, Minister Of State For Health At The 2016 World Family Doctor Day – 3rd Japan-Singapore Inter-Professional Collaboration Symposium

His Excellency Kenji Shinoda

Associate Professor Lee Kheng Hock, President, College of Family Physicians Singapore

Mr Aso Masaru, General Manager, Murayama Singapore

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

Introduction

1.            It gives me great pleasure to join you today at the 3^rd Japan Singapore Inter-professional Collaboration Symposium co-organised by the College of Family Physicians Singapore, Bright Vision Hospital and Murayama Singapore. I would like to first extend a warm welcome to our honourable Japanese speakers and delegates attending this conference.

2.            The theme “Sustainable Healthcare for an Ageing Population: Community Based Integrated Care” is a very pertinent one for countries such as Singapore and Japan, as both face an ageing population. Today, one in eight Singaporeans is aged 65 and above. By 2030, this will double to one in four Singaporeans. In Japan, the number of citizens aged 65 and above have almost quadrupled in the last four decades and by 2030, more than one in four Japanese will be aged 65 years and above.

3.             In tandem with our ageing population, the prevalence of chronic diseases in Singapore is also rising. About a quarter of Singaporeans aged 40 and above will have at least one chronic disease. Not only will there be a larger chronic disease load, but also one with increasing complexity.

4.            Demand for healthcare will increase even as our Singapore workforce is shrinking, making it even more challenging to sustain the provision of healthcare to meet the needs of our people. We cannot continue to provide care in the same way in the future. The shifts we need to make have to start now. We have to move from a hospital-centric care delivery model to a community-based one, well integrated with the rest of the healthcare sector and community at large.  Primary care, being our first and continuous line of care is one critical element to enable this shift to happen.

ONE SINGAPOREAN, ONE FAMILY DOCTOR

5.            Our vision of “One Singaporean, One Family Doctor” encapsulates the role of our family doctors as the trusted health partner of every Singaporean. A strong and long term family doctor-patient relationship enables family doctors to have a holistic understanding of the patient and his family’s medical, social and care needs.  He is the patient’s health advocate, monitoring one’s risk factors in chronic diseases and offering timely personalised advice from screening to prophylactic vaccinations. When necessary, he is also the patient’s navigator across our complex healthcare system through providing appropriate referrals and coordinating care within the community. Our family doctors hence have a very big part to play in the provision of good and affordable care to our Singaporeans and helping them age and live well in the community.

RESOURCING AND SUPPORTING OUR FAMILY DOCTORS

6.            With the critical roles that our family doctors play, we recognise the need to better resource them to manage the changing casemix and acuity of patients. 

7.           Since 2010, we have developed six Community Health Centres (CHCs) to provide support services required for chronic disease management. These CHCs serve to bring services such as nurse counselling, diabetic foot and eye screening and other ancillary services closer to our Singaporeans and primary care doctors in the community.  

8.            Our primary care doctors have also started new initiatives to cater to the needs of our people. One example is the Primary Care Network (PCN) pilot. Under this pilot, primary care doctors in various GP clinics have come together in a network, and share services such as nurse counselling for chronic disease management as well as care coordination and administrative services for their operations. The doctors have built their care provisions and evolved their clinic operations to be centred on patients, and this has shown promising results. We are working with our primary care doctors and partners in the community to see how similar networks can be set up.

9.            Our primary care doctors have also partnered us in providing accessible, subsidized care to all Singaporeans through the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS). Across the island, we have 900 GP clinics and 650 dental clinics that are on CHAS. In 2015 alone, a total of 650,000 citizens benefited from the scheme.

10.         To make it easier for these GPs to participate in CHAS and other healthcare financing schemes, we are enhancing existing IT systems and online portals to make it more hassle-free for GPs to submit claims. At the same time, we are planning to develop a more holistic IT solution that could assist GPs with clinic management, enable the use of electronic medical records, and connect GPs to national systems such as the National Electronic Health Record.   This will better support our GPs in being the first and continuous line of care for their patients, integrated with and coordinating with other relevant care providers.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

11.         Our primary care doctors have also been upskilling themselves to cater to the evolving needs of our people. Geriatric and palliative care skillsets are much needed given our ageing population. It is thus timely that this conference looks into these aspects of practice that are evolving for the family doctor of today.

12.         I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the immense contributions of the College of Family Physicians Singapore over the past 45 years in promoting the values and ideals of Family Medicine (FM). This vision has led the College to design and deliver postgraduate FM training programmes, such as the Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine, to upskill doctors in their professional practice, as well as develop clinical leadership through the Fellowship programme (FCFPS).

13.         MOH will continue to work closely with the College in our transformation journey as we co-create the future primary care landscape, and develop the appropriate training and accreditation frameworks for Family Physicians, to address the evolving needs.

CONCLUSION

14.         Last but not least, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all of our primary care doctors for your tireless dedication in providing care in the community and working with us to achieve our vision of “One Singaporean, One Family Doctor”. I would also take this opportunity to wish you all in advance a Happy World Family Doctor Day which will take place on 19 May. I am sure the knowledge exchange and sharing at today’s conference will further our plans to provide community-based integrated care for our ageing population.  

15.         Thank you.