Total Cost of Providing Long-term Care in Singapore in Latest Available Financial Year

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Health (a) what is the total cost of providing long-term care in Singapore in financial year 2017/2018 or the latest year available, including nursing homes, daycare centres and formal homecare services; and (b) what percentage of this cost has been borne by (i) individuals, (ii) the Government, (iii) insurance (ElderShield) and (iv) charities respectively.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: The 2017 data will only be available later in 2019, as the data collection and compilation process spans across many Government and non-government data sources.

Based on the latest available data in 2016, Singapore's National Health Expenditure on long-term care, including both formal care and informal caregiving, was about $1.3 billion. About two-thirds of this were borne by the Government, and the remaining one-third was paid by private financing sources, which include insurance, charities and individual out-of-pocket payments. Due to constraints in the data, we are unable to provide further breakdown of these sources.