Speech by Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister for Health, at Nurses Merit Award 2019

Ms Tan Soh Chin, Chief Nursing Officer

Nurses

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

          A very good afternoon to all of you. It gives me great pleasure to join you today to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our nurses and the recipients of the Nurses’ Merit Award 2019. It has been an exciting month for nursing. Earlier this month, we hosted the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress where more than 5,300 nurses from all over the world gathered together to share best practices in many aspects such as Nursing Standards, Education and Patient Safety. We showcased to an international audience the important roles our nurses play to transform healthcare in Singapore. Now, we are here today for the Nurses’ Merit Awards and we will be celebrating Nurses’ Day together throughout the month of July until early August.  In fact, rather than celebrating Nurses' Day only on Nurses' Day, we should recognise nurses’ contributions every day.

2.        This is because every day, you touch the lives of many others through your dedication, care, passion and patience. You play a significant role in promoting health, alleviating pain and suffering as well as helping patients and their family members cope during their recovery. I would like to thank our nurses, our everyday heroes, for making a difference in the lives of our patients and their family members.

3.        As we transform our healthcare system to support the challenges of an ageing population and rising chronic disease prevalence, our healthcare workers will also need to evolve in tandem to address our future needs. Being the core of our healthcare workforce, nurses play a critical role in leading transformative changes to improve the delivery of healthcare.

4.        We will grow and develop our nursing workforce in a few ways – by creating more opportunities for you to upgrade yourselves in emerging skills and competencies, encouraging professional development throughout your nursing careers, and making nursing a career of choice for both students as well as mid-career professionals.

Growing the nursing workforce through meaningful job opportunities

5.        I am happy to see our nursing workforce grow by some 17% between 2013 to 2018, with around 42,000 nurses as at the end 2018. It is encouraging that our nursing intakes have also been increasing over the same period and even faster, at 30%, from over 1,600 in 2013 to a bumper crop of over 2,100 in 2018, and I hope more to come, this year. But we are mindful that there is limited headroom to continually increasing intakes among fresh school leavers. To complement our pipeline from fresh school leavers, we have introduced the Professional Conversion Programmes in Nursing since 2003 to attract more mid-career Singaporeans to join this meaningful career. It is heartening to see that in 2018, about 130 mid-career individuals embarked on our nursing PCPs, our highest intake in ten years.

6.        We are also introducing additional opportunities and pathways for upgrading. This year, we have been working with Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) and Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) to introduce a 2+2 Diploma in Nursing for Enrolled Nurses (ENs), to create a new progression pathway for ENs to upgrade to Registered Nurses (RNs) earlier in their career. The new 2+2 Diploma in Nursing provides eligible Institute of Technical Education (ITE) graduates a shortened training pathway of two years instead of the current two and a half. 65 ITE students are expected to benefit from the shortened training pathway this year.  Both Sherry from NYP and Shermaine from NP were pleased that they will be among the first batch of students to complete the course earlier after the nursing curriculum of Nitec and Diploma of Nursing are better aligned to facilitate this through-train training pathway. Both are passionate in providing care to patients and look forward to becoming registered nurses in time to come.

7.        We hope that more students and mid-career Singaporeans will join us in this rewarding and fulfilling profession.  Apart from the multiple education pathways, there are also growing training and development opportunities in the healthcare sector for nurses to upgrade and progress in their career.

Strengthening continued learning for nurses

8.        As announced earlier this year, MOH will be setting up the National Nursing Academy (NNA) to coordinate and support lifelong learning for nurses and nursing leaders across institutions, schools and service training providers. The NNA will develop competency frameworks for nursing speciality and training roadmaps, an accreditation system, and a skills recognition and qualification system. Together, this will make workplace based training portable across institutions and settings. An NNA portal will be ready early next year for nurses to explore available training opportunities and programmes.

9.        One of the priorities of the NNA will be to define the deeper skills and competencies required for nurses’ evolving role in community nursing starting with the Community Nursing Competency Framework (CNCF). Joanne, a nurse manager at Changi General Hospital (CGH) and a Nurses’ Merit Award recipient, is one of the nurses who will benefit from this programme. She was involved in setting up CGH’s community nursing team as one of the pioneer nurses in the department. The new framework will help to identify her learning needs and enable her to guide the nursing team on the right competencies for better patient care in the community. We hope that NNA can help working nurses in their professional development and growth.

10.       MOH is also working with healthcare institutions to empower our experienced ENs to perform expanded roles in nursing care. For example, to allow ENs to administer prescribed medication to patients, ITE College East rolled out a course in Administration of Medication this year to equip ENs with the relevant skills and knowledge. Upon completion, the EN will receive a Certification of Competency. 19 ENs have enrolled in the programme, which started on 11 July 2019. Sarinah, who is a Nurses’ Merit Award recipient, is one of the ENs who will be embarking on this course. On a daily basis, she manages a group of patients and take part in the ward rounds with the staff nurses. She will assist the staff nurses when they perform administration of medications. Upon completion of the EN medication course, she will be empowered to independently administer medication to the patients under her charge within the institution governance framework.

11.       To provide an additional pathway for Registered Nurses (RNs) to upgrade to a nursing degree, the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (ALCNS) will launch a new three-year part-time Bachelor in Science (Nursing Practice) this year. Polytechnic nursing graduates will have the opportunity to develop a range of skills such as enhanced clinical skills and evidence-based practice, which will equip graduates to meet the demands of nursing practice. Starting in August 2019, this is the first local University part-time programme that will allow RNs to pursue their degree as they continue to work.

12.       There are many upgrading opportunities available for nurses throughout your career. In fact, many of our nurses are strong believers and supporters of lifelong learning. Jacqueline, an Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) from the National Healthcare Group Polyclinics and a recipient of the Nurses’ Merit Award today, is a very good example for all of us. Jacqueline, a graduate of the Diploma in Nursing, started working in a geriatric ward in 2001. She attended various in house and formal courses to deepen her competency in nursing older adults, and upgraded herself with a Degree in Nursing.  After 4 years in the geriatric ward, she moved to work in the primary care sector. While her previous experience helped her better manage the elderly patients with common chronic conditions in the polyclinic, she did not stop learning. To further equip herself, she took up the Advanced Diploma in Nursing (Community Health) as well as a Masters in Nursing (NUS) where she eventually became an APN in 2010. In May this year, she completed the National Collaborative Prescribing Programme in NUS which helps to further empower her to provide holistic care, bringing greater convenience to patients. I encourage our nurses to be like Jacqueline, never stop learning. It is important to constantly keep up with the latest knowledge and skills to better serve the patients under our charge.

Closing

13.       Our nurses remain an integral part to our healthcare workforce to meet our future needs. We will continue to grow and develop our nursing workforce through local training pipelines, encouraging our nurses to acquire new skills, and recognising their contributions.

14.       Once again, my warmest congratulations to our Nurses’ Merit Award recipients. I would like to sincerely thank all our nurses for your contributions to our healthcare system. I wish all of you, Happy Nurses Day!

Thank you.