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Some of the interventions put in place by MOH includes, the emphasis on automation initiatives, advanced and prolonged streamlining of nursing work, and lastly, the levelled and immersive shifting of care from hospitals into the community where appropriate.

Furthermore, MOH (Ministry of Health) also promised to continue to take into account demographic and disease trends consistently, aiming to come up with preventive measures to deal with the prevalence of health workforce shortage.

Adding on, some government incentives that seeks to also aid in this issue include:

Introduction of SkillsFuture for upgrading of work skills : This is to help Singaporeans to continue upgrading their skills so that they can take on more roles in their current job.

Introduction of Career Conversion Programmes (CCP) in Workforce Singapore : This is for individuals who want to make mid career switches into sectors that offer better prospects and opportunities for progression. The healthcare industry is well-known among these individuals for the prospects it offers, thereby attracting more individuals to join the said sector.

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By improving career recognition and progression through introduction of SkillsFuture which creates multiple pathways for mid-career professionals entering healthcare profession; including professional conversion programmes

Shifting care from hospitals to community hospitals, to facilitate continuity and reducing number of readmissions to reduce the demand of capacity in hospitals

Increase of hospitals to meet the demand

Increase of salary for healthcare professionals

Raising the capacity and range of nursing training courses

Raising the profile of nursing, such as through the Care to Go Beyond Campaign.

To raise productivity, carry out initiatives on automation, streamlining of nursing work, and shifting of care from hospitals into the community.

Introduction and use of telemedicine, to provide easier access and prevent long waiting time for consultation.

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Raising capacity and range of nursing training courses by 45% from 1,500 to 2,200 per year.

Creating pathways for mid-career entry into nursing via the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) for Enrolled and Registered Nurses which takes about two years to complete (shorter than the regular three-to-four-year diploma programme.

Initiatives with automation (technology: swabot, automated medicine distribution, kiosk for registrations, sending bills online)

Streamlining for nursing work

Shifting of care from hospitals into the community where appropriate

Increase publicity and outreach efforts like career talks and exhibitions.

Buy services from private hospital to ease the workload in public hospitals

Raising the profile of nursing and ensuring lifelong employability, career progression, training, development opportunities and recognition for nurses are enhanced. Provide training courses for interns/nurses for different sectors (courses in intermediate and long-term care etc.)

Raising the profile of nursing and ensuring lifelong employability, career progression, training, development opportunities and recognition for nurses are enhanced.“We are cognisant that salaries play a key role in the attraction and retention of staff,” Dr Koh said during his ministry's Committee of Supply speech.

Increase in salary (up to 14% for nurses in public healthcare)

Allied Health professionals and pharmacists will receive an increase of 3% to 7% in their monthly base salaries

New pay frameworks for senior doctors

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To motivate healthcare workers to continue working, increase their pay. They deserve the pay raise as they have been working long hour shift, making sure that patients receive the best care and that they will be satisfied with the level of care they receive

Strengthen workforce planning, policy and HR management to achieve workforce growth targets and ensure a sufficient supply of skilled health and support workers to meet current and future health needs

MOH would also work on with the educational and training institutions to train the younger healthcare workers and  to have more knowledge to ensure that we have a healthcare system that can serve the needs of Singaporeans.

Rely on foreign talents too, those who are trained professionals, to increase the manpower in the healthcare sector as both foreign and Singaporean healthcare workers are needed to expand the workforce

Initiatives on automation, streamlining of nursing work and shifting of care from hospitals into the community where appropriate.

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(a)

Under-staffing for patient-care can cause overburning to the nurses as they are overworking, this could then cause them to be fatigue thus unable to complete task that are assigned to them, this could than cause high risk of injuries to both staff and patient. There could also be medical error, a lack of engagement and missing nursing care

Higher rate of in-hospital mortality rate in hospitals that are understaffed due to patient turned over, high risk of infection, and a rise in postoperative and greater number of falls.

This is because patient’s safety would be compromised and put patient safety at risk. For example, patients want to go toilet during the night and there are no nurses to help. The patient might slip and fall in the toilet. The overall patient satisfaction level would decrease. This in turn would affect the hospital overall healthcare performance and hospital reputation.

Under-staffing for patient care might endanger the lives of patients. The hospital is dealing with hundreds of patients each day. With a lack of nurses working in the healthcare sector, it can affect the daily operations of a hospital.

Longer waiting times for patients to see a doctor, medications errors and spending little time on each patient can lead to missed care. All of which can endanger the lives of patients a result of understaffing and having too much work to juggle on hand as well.

Overcrowding patients in a hospital which can lead to longer waiting time and increase frustration.

Lack of automated technology to reduce admin work for staff.

(b)

MOH would increase the number of intakes for healthcare professionals jobs including doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, etc by conducting more roadshows to encourage Singaporeans to job.

Increase salary, bonus or pay for healthcare professionals.

Hiring more foreign healthcare manpower to complement our local workforce/tap on foreign-trained professionals.

MOH have also created multiple pathways for mid-career professionals entering the profession, including profession conversion programmes.

Raising the range of various nursing courses. Allow healthcare professionals to go for regular upgrading courses.

Initiating efforts to automate nursing work, streamline nursing work, and shift care from hospitals to the community when feasible.

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Under-staffing causes:

Long waiting time as there is lesser staffs to meet the demand(patients)

Decrease in quality of service

Decrease in patients’ satisfactions

Heavy workload placed on the staffs, leading them to be burned out and stressed

more medical errors

increase in patient complications due as patient safety would be compromised

Staff retention would decrease.

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Initiatives on automation, streamlining of nursing work, and shifting of care from hospitals into the community where appropriate. MOH (Ministry of Health) will also continue to take into consideration demographic and disease trends regularly to come up with preventive measures to deal with the prevalence of health workforce shortage.

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Care to GO Beyond campaign (raising the profile of nursing, allowing more people to be interested to be a nurse)

Raising capacity and range of nursing training courses

Increasing the pay of healthcare professionals

attracting overseas/foreign professionals

increasing the intake of healthcare workers in Singapore such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.

Multiple pathways for mid-career professionals entering the profession

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a) Under-staffing means that staff have to handle a bigger workload by themselves which may lead to increased fatigue among the staff. When the staff are working on a work crunch schedule and are not able to focus properly on their work which may lead to clinical mistakes that could harmfully affect the patient’s life.

Understaffing could cause psychological impact on the overall staff’s health. An overworked schedule may sometimes cause them to lose their sense of morality which will cause them to unnecessarily burst out in frustration towards some patients which will affect everyone’s mental health in the hospital.

This will lead to a decrease in patients’ overall satisfaction due to the number of mistakes that were made by staff resulting in delay in patient’s treatment.

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The high workload for current staff leads to high-stress levels which could in turn result in less motivation for work

Reduced quality of patient care resulting in higher mortality rates as well as a higher risk of nosocomial infections and a greater number of falls or accidents for the patients subjected to under-staffed patient care services.

This comes as a result of more medical errors such as human or administrative errors.

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- Longer waiting times for patients
- Delays and cancellation of appointments/surgeries due to shortage of doctors/nurses
-Potential medical mistakes and burn out among healthcare workers
-Longer times for patient to be discharged resulting in other patients having to wait to be admitted into hospitals
- Potential risk of death increasing due to insufficient number of healthcare workers to care for the patients

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Overworked staff result in neglection of patients or prone to mistakes such as injury to patient during bed transfer. Wrong dosage of medication could be fatal in some situations.

Lack of focus and this could cause medical errors. This could affect the quality of service towards the patients. For example, patients might have to stay longer, a higher risk of readmission to other healthcare facilities, etc… With these factors, it could also cause healthcare staffs to feel emotionally and physically tired due to the stress that they are facing. This could lead to staffs not wanting to work in the healthcare sector anymore or in the future.

Patient safety would be jeopardised, potentially leading to an increase in patient mortality.

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Unsafe practice management

Higher risks of infections

Burn outs and medical errors

Cognitive failure

Poor patient outcomes -> lengthened hospital stays& increased chance of patient death

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Increase the salary of the healthcare professionals

Increase local recruitment of healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and dentists.

Hiring foreign talents.

Provide incentives(monthly bonuses)

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+ May have a higher risk of infection

+ Staffs will be more fatigue to work longer hours and be less focused on work (Burnout and poor patient outcomes)

+ Patient safety will be compromised (E.g. Patient’s call alarm is not answered)

+ Additional “burden” would be faced by each staff

+ Medication error (In a rush; may missed out on some aspects)

+ Patient dissatisfaction (fail to attract and retain patients)

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b)

ILTC manpower council > find solutions to attract talent to the sector, build leadership, create well-defined career pathways, and promotes the sector’s image (e.g. professional conversion programmes> to make mid-career locals be prepared to take on roles such as nurses, physiotherapists, O.T etc)

Invite foreign’s talent into the health workforce

More training opportunities to enhance staff’s skills and knowledge (e.g. Community Care Training Grant and Community Care Manpower Development Award> allow employers to send their staff for training and upskilling)

MOH set aside funding to attract more talented locals to train healthcare professionals, healthcare staff and administrators in the sectors.

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The key interventions are Singaporeans - across all ages and experience levels - are being invited to join the healthcare sector with a slew of SkillsFuture initiatives and scholarships.

MOH will factor in the higher salary levels in our funding to community care providers."There are funds in addition to the $350 million that the Ministry of Health had given between 2012 and 2017 to most community care providers to support increases in their staff salaries.

MOH is also trying to shift care from hospitals into the community where it is applicable to address the issue of manpower crunch. With that gone, more people will be interested to work in that industry as it will not be as stressful and strenuous as before.

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healthcare satisfaction would decrease as healthcare staff will need to manage a lot of workload

High-stress level for healthcare staff -> a lot of responsibility

increases the risk of accident

quality of healthcare decreases

Higher risk of infection in patient

patient safety would be endanger due to little/insufficient attention given to the patient and this would lead to and increase in patient mortality

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Creating multiple pathways for mid-career professionals entering the profession’

Raise productivity such as automation, shifting of care from hospitals into the community

Regular review on manpower needs

Continuous work in educational and training institutions and healthcare providers to ensure that we have a nursing workforce that can serve the needs of Singaporeans

Raising the profile of nursing through the Care to Go Beyond Campaign

Improving career recognition and progress of the health workforce

Reviewing the salaries of healthcare workers to remain competitive

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Stress on healthcare  workers, increase rate of in-hospital mortality, a higher risk of infection, a rise in postoperative complications, a greater number of falls, delay in service delivery to patients.

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Patient care satisfaction levels will decrease due to the longer waiting time to receive consultation

Patient safety might be negatively affected as the lack of staff might lead to time wasted on gathering instruments or examining the patient, and thus increase the rate of mortality.