Push to get S'pore residents paired with GPs from 2023

Family doctors will play a key role as the nation shifts from the traditional focus on illness-based hospital care to patient-centred preventive care that aims to nip diseases in the bud and keep people out of hospital as much as possible.

Describing this as a major healthcare initiative called the Healthier SG strategy, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said it is important to move now.

Speaking in Parliament during the debate on his ministry's budget yesterday, he noted that more people are suffering from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, for example.

Singaporeans are also getting less healthy generally, he pointed out.

Healthcare expenditure is already expected to triple to almost $27 billion in 2030.

Getting a primary care doctor to lead the care for patients would help prevent diseases, as well as reduce or delay the likelihood of those with chronic conditions requiring hospital treatments. There are around 1,800 general practitioner (GP) clinics here.

From next year, the Health Ministry (MOH) will invite each resident to enrol with one GP or polyclinic doctor of their choice for all their care needs. To encourage more people to sign up, the ministry is looking at options like making recommended health screenings free.

Mr Ong said: "Perhaps we can tap MediSave more for our care plan, or offer insurance premium discounts or vouchers if we diligently follow our care plans or, even better still, show good outcomes."

Healthier SG involves regular, scheduled visits of at least once a year to a family doctor, and could start with people in their 40s and above, Mr Ong said.

In a preventive care plan, the family doctor may refer one to a qigong class, to a brisk walking group, or a community farming club, he said.

So, a person's regular doctor will be the first point of contact when he needs help with a health issue.

However, two in five Singaporeans do not have a regular family doctor, said Mr Ong.

"So there is no one family doctor who knows our overall health condition and family health history well enough, to be able to see the link between different care episodes, even across different family members."

Having a regular family doctor also means that there is someone to provide continuous care, when a patient with more complex needs is discharged from hospital and referred to the GP, for instance.

The government-funded initiative is a "sea change" in healthcare, said Dr Tan Tze Lee, president of the College of Family Physicians, Singapore. It means patients are signing up with a GP or a polyclinic doctor to look after them for a period of time, he said.

Mr Ong said that the GP enrolment programme will be coordinated by the three healthcare clusters, each of which will look after up to 1.5 million residents.

Residents can get care near their homes, though they are free to enrol with a GP located far away from their home, or make changes, for instance, when they move house.

The clusters will be provided with a pre-determined fee for every resident living in the region that they are looking after, he said.

The Government will support the GP clinics, such as in telemedicine and IT systems, and beef up the workforce in the primary and community care sectors over the next few years.

"After 10 years of foundation laying, plus a pandemic crisis, it is time for us to take the next big step," he said. "There is urgency to this, because in the next 10 years, long after the Covid-19 dust has settled, we will have to tackle our biggest healthcare challenge since our nation began - the deteriorating health of the population."

The Government plans to consult all stakeholders on the new initiative and publish a White Paper on it in the second half of the year.