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The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced during the Committee of Supply (COS) debates in Parliament on Friday (Mar. 5) that the ministry will be taking steps to invest in building a future-ready healthcare workforce.

One of these steps is to increase the salaries of staff working in the public healthcare sector and in publicly-funded community care organisations.

Base salary increase by 3% to 14% for public healthcare sector

The monthly base salaries of nurses, allied health professionals (AHPs), pharmacists, and administrative and ancillary staff will be raised starting from July 2021, Senior Minister of State for Health Koh Poh Koon announced on Friday.

MOH highlighted in a media briefing that the salary adjustments are not to recognise the healthcare workers' efforts in fighting Covid-19, as those have been recognised many times.

Instead, the move is to ensure that healthcare workers' salaries remain competitive and Singapore can continue to attract quality healthcare manpower.

In the public healthcare sector, roughly 56,300 staff will receive an increase in their monthly base salaries.

Nurses will receive an increase of 5 to 14 per cent in their monthly base salaries, phased over the next two years.

Allied health professionals, pharmacists, and administrative and ancillary staff, including support care staff, will see an increase of 3 to 7 per cent in their monthly base salaries this year.

The percentage increase for a staff will be based on their profession, grade, and seniority, MOH said in the briefing. However, the ministry is unable to share the exact benchmarks.

Starting salaries also being raised

An MOH spokesperson said that as part of the salary enhancement exercise, the ministry will also be increasing the starting salaries of nurses, allied health professionals, pharmacists, and administrative and ancillary staff in public healthcare institutions from July 2021.

The current starting salary of diploma-trained nurses is S$2,300, and that of Nitec-trained nurses is S$1,740, excluding employer CPF, bonuses, and other variable components.

Those who just graduated and have joined the public healthcare institutions before July 2021 will benefit from the announced salary increases together with the rest of the workforce.

More information will be made known to institutions nearer the implementation date, along with the rest of the detailed adjustments for the salary enhancement exercise.

The salaries of doctors and dentists working in public healthcare institutions were updated previously in 2019.

"MOH will regularly monitor the salary competitiveness of our public healthcare workforce," Koh said.

MOH said that it has no plans to encourage private hospitals to adopt a similar salary framework for their healthcare professionals, and that it is within private hospitals' own discretion to do so.

Additional funding for community care sector salaries as well

MOH announced that it will also be increasing the funding support for salaries in publicly-funded community care organisations, in order to ensure that salaries in the community care sector stay competitive.

This increase in funding will benefit around 20,800 staff.

MOH will work with the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) and community care organisations to implement the changes over the next two years.

Increasing training capacity

Another way that MOH is trying to invest in Singapore's healthcare workforce is by focusing on training capacity to encourage more people to join the industry.

Since 2012, Koh said, the intakes for medical, nursing, dentistry, and allied health students have increased. Between 2014 and 2020, the intakes for nursing have increased by around 45 per cent, from about 1,500 in 2014 to about 2,200 in 2020.

In addition, MOH is working with Workforce Singapore to enable more people making mid-career switches to join the healthcare sector.

One way they are doing so is by increasing training capacity for healthcare professionals under the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP).

In addition to the existing PCP programme at Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic will also become a nursing PCP provider, offering a two-year accelerated PCP-Registered Nurses (Diploma) programme.

PCP applications for both polytechnics will start from April 2021 for the October 2021 intake.

In addition, as a way to explore more pathways to allow mid-career individuals to complete the PCP training in a shorter period of time, Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) will introduce an accelerated programme in Occupational Therapy.

This programme will allow those who already have a degree in a science-related field to complete the PCP in slightly under three years, rather than four years.

Applications for the PCP for Occupational Therapists are currently open until Mar. 19.

Review career pathways for support staff

The ministry also said that it is working with healthcare employers to review career pathways for staff working in healthcare and operations support roles, in order to provide them with more options for further development.

Both the public healthcare and community care sectors are working on these job redesign efforts, to develop attractive career and wage progression prospects for these staff.

Doing so will help healthcare employers attract and retain talent, improve productivity, and grow a skilled workforce to meet Singaporeans' growing healthcare needs, said MOH.

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Top photo via Facebook / NUH.