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Minister Ong Ye Kung sets out Singapore’s next healthcare priorities: expanding infrastructure and workforce, deepening community health strategies, harnessing technology, and developing new nursing skills with nurses at the centre of the transformation.
Singapore’s healthcare system is set to undergo sweeping transformations in the coming years, with nurses playing a critical role at the heart of these changes. In his opening address at the National University Health System (NUHS) Nurses’ Day 2025 celebration, Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Health and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, reaffirmed this message, recognising nurses as “the backbone of the healthcare system”.
Speaking to a room of nursing professionals and award recipients, Minister Ong opened by reiterating the essential role nurses play in healthcare delivery. “Without you, there is no healthcare infrastructure,” he emphasised, citing upcoming developments such as new polyclinics in Tengah, Yew Tee and Taman Jurong, and the redevelopment of the ones in Clementi, Jurong and Queenstown. In addition to that, Alexandra Hospital and the NUH Kent Ridge campus will also be redeveloped. Recruitment and training efforts, he added, are already underway to ensure a strong nursing presence in these facilities.
He went on to highlight nurses’ roles in driving innovation and enabling new care models. The NUHS@Home programme which delivers hospital-level care at home now accounts for around 250 equivalent beds nationwide, including 100 from NUHS alone. Nurses have also led impactful service improvements such as performing IVT eye injections, reducing appointment wait times from five weeks to just one.
Four key thrusts for the years ahead
Minister Ong’s speech then turned to the road ahead focusing on four priorities for Singapore’s healthcare agenda.
1. Expanding infrastructure and workforce
With rising demand driven by an ageing population, Minister Ong said the expansion of hospitals and polyclinics would be a cornerstone of Singapore’s healthcare agenda. He emphasised the importance of having sufficient qualified manpower and nurses to operate these facilities is a key priority.
2. Deepening the ‘SG-type’ national health strategies
Singapore will continue to build on its three flagship initiatives: Healthier SG, Age Well SG and Grow Well SG.
Under Healthier SG, the focus is now on the second phase, which is to get residents to actively return to their GPs for check-ins, even when not sick, and building health-seeking habits. Community and environmental support, he noted, will be key to encouraging healthier lifestyles.
For seniors, Age Well SG will expand its Active Ageing Centres (AACs), with community nurses playing a frontline role in managing preventive and chronic care. Highlighting NUHS’ efforts, he pointed to Happy Village @ Mei Ling in Queenstown, a pilot that integrates healthcare and social support through community nurses, allied health professionals and volunteers.
Meanwhile, Grow Well SG will sharpen its focus on the young, especially in mental wellbeing, working closely with schools, preschools, families and the wider community.
3. Harnessing technology to bring care into the community
Technologies such as telemedicine and AI are set to decisively shift the delivery of healthcare away from hospitals, said Minister Ong. He noted that while technology will never replace nurses, it will augment their roles and boost productivity. Ground-up innovations such as the use of smart glasses and remote monitoring are already helping nurses deliver care more efficiently.
4. Developing new skills pathways
To support the evolving healthcare landscape, the Ministry will focus on developing and re-skilling the workforce, with particular emphasis on nurses. Minister Ong highlighted the need for structured skills pathways to enable nurses to contribute effectively to areas of growing demand, such as palliative care, long-term care and community nursing. He said the Ministry would work closely with healthcare clusters and institutes of higher learning to develop these pathways.
Celebrating the nursing profession
The celebration also saw the recognition of 160 nurses with awards such as the NUHS Nightingale Award, Joycelyn Khoo Award, Student Nightingale Award and MOH Nurses’ Merit Award.
As Minister Ong closed his speech, he expressed the Ministry’s ongoing commitment to developing nurses’ careers and upholding public respect for the profession.
“Let us once again salute our nurses, for your role as caregivers, lifesavers, advocates, educators and innovators,” he said.
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