Community hospital subsidies to be enhanced from Oct: Ong

From October, subsidies at community hospitals will be enhanced to align with those of acute hospitals, and allowed to be used for advanced diagnostics, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.

- Judith Tan

This will minimise delays in the transfer to step-down care, he added.

He was speaking on Sept 24 at the National Medical Excellence Awards ceremony, where outstanding clinicians, clinician scientists and other healthcare professionals were recognised.

In the debate on the Ministry of Health's budget in March, Mr Ong had said the community hospital subsidy framework would be aligned with the acute hospital subsidy framework so that patients receive the same subsidy rate of 50 per cent to 80 per cent throughout their inpatient stay.

He had also said that more diagnostic services, such as CT and MRI scans, and relevant drugs would be subsidised at community hospitals.

In his speech at the awards dinner, Mr Ong said that driven by the ageing population with changing healthcare needs, "care is increasingly anchored in communities, health is being built up outside of hospitals, and new care models involving partnership between hospitals and community partners are emerging".

To recognise these changes, the Ministry of Health introduced the new National Community Care Excellence Team Award at this year's event. The award recognises teams that have contributed significantly to improving community health and raised awareness of preventive health in the community care setting.

The first recipient in this category is the SingHealth Community Hospitals (SCH) team leading the Social Prescribing Programme, in partnership with the Agency for Integrated Care, SkillsFuture Singapore and several active ageing centres.