The mission of our clusters is not only to provide quality health care to the people of Singapore. They have to train the next generation of healthcare professionals and also conduct research in order to develop medical excellence.

I would like to commend NHG for demonstrating its continued commitment towards training and professional development. For the second year running, NHG has drawn upon its own savings to supplement the funds provided by my Ministry for the HMDP Awards. The combined funds have made it possible for NHG to maximise the training opportunities for its staff and sponsor over 80 of them for postgraduate courses or overseas skills training.

I am particularly pleased to note that of these 83 HMDP awards, 37 of them are going to nurses and allied healthcare professionals. This is both a tribute to and reflection of their importance and contributions to the healthcare team. I would like to encourage NHG to continue making use of HMDP in this way to develop all members of the healthcare team. Such opportunities for professional upgrading will help our nurses and allied healthcare professionals to function at a higher level and eventually take on greater roles and responsibilities in patient care. Our hospitals, clinics and medical institutions should continue to work towards providing more integrated, holistic, patient-centred care. In many instances, this requires the development of strong, effective healthcare teams with well-trained nurses, case managers and allied health professionals who would not only provide care to the patient, but also patient education and facilitation or coordination of the care of the patient’s other medical needs.

As more of our staff receive higher training, their job scopes should be expanded accordingly. It is important to see such advancement if the nursing and allied healthcare professions are to grow and attract more young people into these careers.

This year, NHG has gone one step further in its commitment to training by establishing the NHG College. The objectives of setting up this College are to:

• Provide an environment conducive to continuous learning
• Consolidate the training efforts of the various institutions under NHG
• Advance the building of regional and international links to other healthcare institutions and universities

I am pleased to note that NHG’s emphasis on training all members of the healthcare team has extended to the composition of the College, which consists of 3 faculties or institutes respectively devoted to:

• Medical education & training
• Nursing education & training, and
• Management and Allied Health sciences.

I understand that $1m has been put aside to expand the infrastructure support of the College, including its training facilities, medical and nursing training equipment and the development of training resources. I am sure the staff of NHG will make good use of the College and its resources to improve on the current standards of training. This complements the initiatives that have been carried by my Ministry and the relevant training authorities to raise the quality of our medical training system.

One important component of educational quality assurance is the assessment and formal accreditation of all training departments. This process has been recently completed for house officer and specialist training. Accreditation for Family Medicine training will be carried out soon. The next step will be to develop and implement appropriate systems of training audit. These would be based on trainee feedback, monitoring of the training log books and experience of trainees, and site visits. In addition to providing us with an assessment of the quality of our medical training, these audits will also help the Ministry to determine how effectively the clusters have made use of the money that MOH disburses to them each year to fund training activities. This will enable us to adjust the training funding according to the performance of the training centres as provided for under the Ministry’s service agreement with the clusters.

NHG College’s objective of promoting continuous learning will help to support the implementation of compulsory CME (or Continuing Medical Education). CME is an important mechanism for ensuring that our doctors maintain the currency of their professional knowledge and stay abreast of the latest developments in medical science and technology.

Up till now, CME participation in Singapore has been voluntary and the participation rates have been relatively low. Only about 40% of our doctors achieve the minimum required number of CME points each year. For this reason, CME will be made compulsory for all doctors from 2003 onwards. The aim is to require all doctors to accumulate at least 50 CME points within a 2-year cycle before they are allowed to renew their practising certificate.

Many developed countries already require participation in CME as a condition for the renewal of medical practice licences including most states in the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The UK and Canada are also planning to incorporate CME requirements into their licensing frameworks.

The Singapore Medical Council has been working closely with the College of Family Physicians, the Academy of Medicine and the Singapore Medical Association to work out the core CME curriculum for GPs and specialists. The NHG College may wish to consider providing CME activities for GPs and other private sector doctors as part of the partnership schemes.

The public sector has a long tradition of offering opportunities to pursue higher education and professional development. The chance to stay abreast of or even be on the cutting edge of medical science has attracted many of our staff to work within NHG. In turn, this constant professional upgrading provides the cluster with the knowledge, skills and expertise to fulfil its mission of clinical service, teaching and research.

In closing, I would like to express my hearty congratulations to all recipients of the 2002 NHG HMDP Awards. And it is with great pleasure that I declare the NHG College officially open.

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