Mr Cai Yinzhou asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health regarding Age Well SG (a) what measures are used to track improvements in quality of life and healthspan; (b) how social isolation is measured; and (c) what objective targets or benchmarks are used to assess progress in reducing social isolation and enhancing overall well-being among seniors.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: It is not straightforward to track the impact of national preventive health programmes like Age Well SG. Operationally, we can monitor attendance and outreach numbers. Long term, the Ministry of Health monitors indicators such as frailty prevalence, chronic disease prevalence and health-adjusted life expectancy. In time, we also expect academics to conduct research on the impact of these project

Link to Hansard: Link

Mr Cai Yinzhou asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry plans to onboard Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners to the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR); (b) if so, what is the timeline; (c) what technical and financial support will be provided to TCM clinics to upgrade their practice management systems; and (d) how will the Ministry ensure data interoperability between TCM diagnostic terminology and Western medical records within NEHR.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) service is not a licensable healthcare service under the Healthcare Services Act 2020, and under the Health Information Bill, data from TCM practitioners are not within the data types to be contributed to the National Electronic Health Record system (NEHR).

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Mr Cai Yinzhou: My second cut addresses the age-old question: what is a life well lived? For many seniors I have spoke with in Bishan-Toa Payoh, the answer is not just more handouts, but dignity, choice and the agency to live their golden years on their own terms.

To this end, I have four proposals.

First, expanding the Integrated Community Care Providers into a "Senior Concierge". Minister Ong has spoken about a single coordination point for care and 85 sub-regions, which will soon provide coordination across Regional Health System, Home Personal Care Plus, Singapore Counselling Centre, Drug Rehabilitation Centre and Active Ageing Centres with One Ring to Rule… excuse me, One Care Plan to coordinate them all. 

I propose beyond clinical outcomes, to further centralise touchpoints for participating in Employment and Employability Institute for job search, People's Association for community events and Social Service Offices for financial aid applications. One contact, one coordinator, for the whole senior as a person and being.

Second, to measure what truly matters. In our October Sitting, the Ministry's reply on tracking social isolation focused on attendance and outreach numbers. Loneliness cuts deeper and these numbers only scratch the surface. I ask the Ministry to partner with our educational institutes to conduct regular, widespread surveys on the social determinants of health. We need a localised version of "Quality of Life" indicators to understand how our efforts are truly reducing isolation.

Third, bringing specialist healthcare to the heartlands. Not being able to eat, hear or walk, is directly linked to cognitive decline and increased mortality. Yet, access to specialised help remains a hurdle. I ask the Ministry to ramp up dental, audiology and podiatry facilities, specifically to estates with high concentrations of seniors. We must catch these impairments before the rapid decline in quality of life.

Fourth, I ask the Ministry to consider introducing degree or diploma courses for audiology and podiatry in tertiary institutions, to increase the number of Singaporeans specialising in these areas and in turn, be better able to serve our seniors who require such specialised care.

By streamlining access, measuring what matters, expanding specialist care and building local expertise, we ensure our seniors are not just "ageing", but are living with agency.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, I thank the Member for his question on audiologists. In general, a qualified audiologist in Singapore needs a higher level of certification because a diploma level may not be quite enough to perform the task. So, we will look and see whether there is a way to actually find an in-between. But ultimately, we cannot sacrifice standards just to meet the needs of people who want to take a shorter course to get there. The first thing is to maintain standards.

But there are actually some of these audiology programmes that are done at a lower level. For example, I do believe that there are some basic industrial audiometry course at Temasek Polytechnic, but that is really more for industrial application of technicians who are actually screening at the industry level, not so much as a clinical setting where you actually provide services at the hospital.

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, I will try to answer the questions from Mr Cai. To Mr Cai, please correct me if I heard your questions wrongly, because I was trying to get all your four questions. One of the questions was, whether social prescriptions are part of the One Care Assessment Plan. That is actually part of the Healthier SG, where the care plan also includes the social prescription. For example, diet, lifestyle, exercise and many more other areas. So, certainly, that should be part of that care plan, but this goes beyond what the Integrated Community Care Provider does, which focuses more on seniors and the needs of those seniors.

Mr Cai also asked if the the Integrated Community Care Provider and Agency for Integrated Care could cater for different sorts of activities, like faith-based volunteering or maybe for seniors who are interested in gardening as a social activity.

I would say that we are just starting to roll out the the Integrated Community Care Provider framework starting this year and over the coming years, and this is a non-trivial exercise across 84 sub-regions in Singapore – bringing together different parties and partners. In each area, each sub-region, there are different providers, different parties providing different services – from befriending services, rehabilitation services and many more.

So, bringing the different partners together, having a common language in which to discuss, understand and reach out and provide services to a senior is non-trivial. Having a standardised tool based on this assessment, developing a care plan, implementing this care plan and getting our seniors to go through the care plan entirely is non-trivial. So, I would say, let us take one step at a time and there are already many activities and other partners in the community providing different services and volunteering opportunities for seniors. We welcome it. It is really part of the fabric of a diverse community and very much part of the "we first" society.

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, let me take the opportunity to also answer Mr Cai's question that I missed out earlier about flexible work arrangements and how can we work with different partners on that. I mentioned in my speech the different Ministries' efforts to support caregivers, and we understand the challenges that caregivers face, juggling between work and care. This is something they are working on, including flexible work arrangements and other initiatives. We will continue to work with our colleagues and other partners in the community.