This is known as step-down care.

In-patient services available are a Nursing Home for the elderly and a Community Hospital section that provides step-down care for patients who need time to recuperate.

Healthcare professionals such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, diagnostic radiographers and nurses are in demand in hospitals, clinics and step-down care facilities like nursing homes across the world.

Too many people stay in hospital for too long when they could receive the treatment they need in the community, be that in their own home or a care home via step-down care.

Step-down care is believed to be a better way to control inflammation in the bronchial tubes than starting at lower doses of medicine and increasing the medicine if the dose is not enough.

With the greater need to improve the delivery of healthcare services to the elderly, MOH invited Dr Samuel Charles Scherer, an expert on step-down care, to share his experience with the healthcare community in Singapore under the Manpower Development Programme in March 2004.