Age Well SG to Support Our Seniors to Age Actively and Independently in the Community

1.     Age Well SG is a national programme to support seniors to age well in their homes and their communities. Led by the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of National Development (MND) and Ministry of Transport (MOT), it aims to support our seniors to age actively, stay socially connected, and be cared for within their communities. 

2.     A long-term programme that will be progressively implemented, Age Well SG will see a comprehensive nationwide transformation across the areas of housing, transport, active ageing and care services to anchor ageing in the community.

Encouraging Active Ageing

Active Ageing Centres

3.     MOH will dedicate around $800 million from FY2024 to FY2028 to better resource Active Ageing Centres (AACs) to connect to a significantly larger pool of seniors, so as to achieve our vision of seniors ageing well in their homes and communities. 

4.     We will improve the operating model of AACs to bring about these added benefits:  

a.     Greater accessibility and convenience to seniors.

•     AACs will leverage Silver Generation Ambassadors to strengthen their community outreach, to get to know the seniors in the community, focusing especially on those at risk of social isolation. AACs will also tap on common spaces, including coffeeshops, parks, pavilions and residents’ corners, to engage and deliver services to seniors. 

•     For example, AACs can tap on common spaces in the community, such as those under the People’s Association’s Residents’ Networks to engage and deliver programmes to seniors closer to their homes.

b.     Improved quality and range of programmes for seniors across five key domains of social, physical health, cognitive, learning and volunteerism. 

•     These include befriending services, group physical activities and other active ageing programmes, and social support for vulnerable seniors. These evidence-informed programmes cater to all seniors, with different programmes designed for different needs. 

•     For example, Move It Feel Strong by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) for seniors who are robust, square stepping by Sport Singapore (SportSG) to enhance cognition and prevent falls for frailer seniors, as well as digital literacy courses for all seniors to upskill. 

•     Beyond these programmes that AACs may choose to plug and play, AACs also have the flexibility to customise programmes to meet the needs and preferences of seniors in the neighbourhood.

c.     Strengthened collaboration with community partners and healthcare clusters.  

•     It is very important that AACs do not work alone. They need to leverage existing networks and volunteers that are already present in the community, to bring activities and social programmes nearer to seniors. 

•     On health related services, AACs need to work closely with healthcare clusters, to implement health screening services in the community, and integrate with Healthier SG.  

5.     To support these efforts, MOH will expand our network of AACs from 154 today to 220 island-wide by 2025 to make them accessible to every senior. With this expansion, eight in 10 seniors will have access to AAC activities in the vicinity of their homes.

Senior Volunteerism 

6.     To encourage our seniors to stay meaningfully engaged through active volunteerism, we will roll out a “Silver Generation Volunteer” programme to train and deploy senior volunteers to the AACs. 

7.     The Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) will provide training to equip seniors with the necessary skills, before matching senior volunteers to diverse volunteering opportunities at the AACs. Seniors can organise and run active ageing programmes for other seniors, such as preparing meals for communal dining for fellow seniors, and befriending or buddying seniors who are at risk of social isolation.  

8.     We aim to double the number of senior volunteers trained by AIC to around 4,000 senior volunteers by 2025. Interested seniors can approach AIC to find out more about available volunteering opportunities, or visit AIC’s website (https://for.sg/aac-volunteerapplication) to indicate their interest.

Strengthening Support for Seniors with Care Needs

Shared Stay-in Senior Care Services Sandbox 

9.     We will support private sector innovation to widen the range of care solutions for seniors to age in the community. In September this year, MOH and AIC, with support from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), launched applications for a sandbox to explore the viability of new stay-in shared caregiving models for seniors. This will mitigate the impact on family caregiving that shrinking family sizes have brought about and offer more options for seniors, especially those living alone, to age in the community with care support. 

10.    We have identified five companies to be onboarded onto the sandbox, and they aim to serve an estimated 800 senior clients. Participating companies will be supported through foreign manpower concessions to mitigate manpower challenges.

Seamless Delivery of Care 

11.    Today, seniors with multiple care needs may have to interact with multiple care  providers and undergo repeated assessments from each provider. For example, they may need to interact with a day care centre as well as a home care provider.  

12.    We will help seniors and their caregivers have a more seamless care journey by having a single point of contact to meet their multiple care needs from various providers. The point of contact will perform the role of a single bundled service provider, coordinating care across service providers for the seniors. It will use a standardised care assessment tool, to plan and address the senior’s care needs. This reduces the need for multiple assessments and unnecessary referrals by different care providers.

13.    These efforts to improve coordination in the sector will take place progressively from the second half of 2024, and in consultation with stakeholders. 

Enhancing Support for Caregiving Training

14.    To make it as easy as possible for every Singaporean family to have a trained caregiver, the government will enhance the Caregivers’ Training Grant (CTG). From 2024, caregivers can tap on up to $400 in CTG subsidies per year, double that of $200 today. We will also allow caregivers to tap on their SkillsFuture Credit to pay for eligible caregiver courses, to further reduce the cost of training. 

15.    With these, we intend to scale up the number of subsidised training places for caregivers, to 4,400 each year across 200 courses. AIC and SkillsFuture Singapore will add more places if needed to ensure that the needs of caregivers are met.

Improvements to the Living Environment 

16.    Over the years, MND has been making our homes and estates more senior-friendly through upgrading programmes such as the Enhancement for Active Seniors (EASE) programme, the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP) and the Estate Upgrading Programme (EUP). We will now be making a bigger, more concerted push to address seniors’ needs in the built environment through tighter collaboration and coordination among agencies, such as Housing & Development Board (HDB), Building and Construction Authority (BCA), AIC, National Parks Board (NParks) and Land Transport Authority (LTA). This will involve closer partnership with residents and the community to carry out new upgrading works to make it easier and safer for seniors to engage in their daily activities.

Enhancing Homes and Communities to Make Them More Senior-friendly 

Within HDB flats:

17.    We are expanding the EASE programme, into EASE 2.0, which will offer a wider  range of senior-friendly features. These include rocker switches, home fire alarm devices, handrails at multi-step flat entrances, foldable shower seats and widened toilet entrances for wheelchair users. These new features were decided on in consultation with MOH, AIC, and healthcare professionals like occupational therapists. We have also taken in public feedback from surveys and learning outcomes from in-home trials.

18.    To better support low-income and vulnerable seniors who often lack family support, we will progressively expand the provision of the wireless Alert Alarm System (AAS) to all seniors aged 60 and above staying in public rental housing. With the wireless AAS, eligible seniors can easily call for help during emergencies by pressing the alert buttons conveniently placed in their homes. Upon activation of the alert button, seniors can record a short voice message which will be transmitted to CareLine, a 24/7 hotline that responds to callers in distress, or nearby AACs. The expansion is expected to benefit around 26,800 more seniors living in around 170 rental blocks. 

At the HDB precincts and private residential estates:

19.    HDB will progressively roll out senior-centric upgrading works to over 20 older precincts with a higher density of seniors in Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Merah, Queenstown and Toa Payoh. These works will:  

a.     Make it safer and easier for seniors to move around their neighbourhoods.

•     These include enhancements such as barrier-free access ramps and rest points along routes frequented by seniors. 

•     To make wayfinding easier and safer for seniors with dementia, larger and more  colourful signages with symbols may be introduced to help seniors navigate their neighbourhood independently. 

b.     Enhance seniors’ health and wellness by facilitating physical and social activities in the community.

•     More amenities that support health, such as fitness trails and therapeutic gardens, may be installed to encourage seniors to engage in outdoor activities to stay active. Such amenities also promote social interaction and intergenerational bonding, enabling seniors to expand their social networks. For instance, in Queenstown’s Mei Ling precinct, seniors can look forward to an Active Health Fitness Trail, which will feature an exercise path that links up various fitness corners within the precinct, that helps seniors to improve muscle strength, balance and mobility. 

20.    The suite of enhancements will be tailored for each precinct based on residents’  feedback. Seniors will be engaged through community improvement walks to better understand their needs and seek their views on the senior-friendly amenities that they hope to see in their HDB precinct. HDB has formed an inter-agency committee involving AIC, LTA and NParks to coordinate the improvement works and ensure residents’ needs are met holistically. These upgrading initiatives will complement Healthier SG to support seniors in leading an active lifestyle and will be gradually implemented over the next 5 years. These works will potentially benefit more than 21,000 households.

21.    Similar upgrading works will be carried out at selected older private residential estates, under the EUP. Additionally, we will identify and select estates with a higher concentration of seniors, including those that have benefited from EUP some time ago, for senior-friendly enhancements.  

Ramping up the Supply of Community Care Apartments

22.    To provide more assisted living options for seniors to age in place, MND, MOH and HDB will ramp up the supply of Community Care Apartments (CCAs). This is a public housing typology that pairs senior-friendly housing with on-site social activities and care services that can be customised according to the senior’s care needs. Seniors living in CCAs can also enjoy convenient access to various amenities.

•    Given the positive response to the first two CCA projects, Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok and Queensway Canopy, we will launch up to 30 CCAs by 2030, if the model of care provision proves to be effective and scalable. We will do so in different locations across Singapore, so that more seniors can have the option to spend their golden years in neighbourhoods that they are familiar with.

•    Seniors can look forward to the third CCA project at Bedok, which will be launched in the upcoming December 2023 Build-To-Order (BTO) exercise. 

•    We will continue to refine the CCA model, especially after the first residents move in to Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok next year. 

Friendly Streets

23.    To further enhance safety and convenience for residents, especially seniors, tomove around their neighbourhoods, MOT and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) target to expand the Friendly Streets initiative to all towns by 2030.

24.    The Friendly Streets initiative was launched during MOT’s Committee of Supply this year to create more inclusive and pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods. All five pilot sites¹ are near key amenities such as markets, hawker centres, community clubs, and schools, and see high pedestrian flows. Friendly Streets will include features such as barrier-free crossings, more frequent and longer Green Man activations, and traffic calming measures to slow vehicles down. 

25.    Each pilot is spearheaded by a taskforce, made up of the local Advisers, representatives from relevant government agencies, the Town Council and grassroots leaders. LTA has been working closely with the respective taskforces on the features and traffic measures to be implemented in each pilot site. We have also engaged residents and community stakeholders to share preliminary plans, and seek feedback on these plans for each location. The community welcomed the Friendly Streets in their neighbourhoods. LTA will take in the feedback received before starting construction on the pilot locations progressively from end 2023.

26.    Building on this momentum, we are expanding the Friendly Streets initiative tocover more towns so that it would benefit more residents including seniors in the years ahead. We will take into account learning points from the pilot locations, and continue to work closely with the local communities to implement Friendly Streets in other towns.

27.    The full details of Age Well SG are available on www.agewellsg.gov.sg. Together with the efforts of the community and the family, we will make Singapore a home where seniors can age well in their homes and communities, while remaining connected to their loved ones.

¹The sites are located in Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Batok West, Tampines, Toa Payoh, and West Coast.