SIA cabin crew members take up new role of training Khoo Teck Puat Hospital’s Patient Care Officers

The Singapore Airlines (SIA) cabin crew members are all set to embark on a new journey of training selected staff of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), under its new Patient Care Officers programme.

This collaboration was announced on Thursday (20 August) after the two organisation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), and stated that the programme will start next month.

“KTPH and Singapore Airlines signed an MOU earlier today, agreeing to work together on a range of specialised training services for the hospital,” KTPH said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

It added, “SIA will commence customer service training for our new Patient Care Officers (PCO) – a role that was inspired by the Care Ambassadors programme that we jointly launched in April.”

As to what the PCO is all about, the hospital said that it is a “new service professional role that works closely with doctors, nurses and allied health staff to provide quality care service, caregiving and end-to-end care coordination for patients in the ward”.

The SIA cabin crew trainers will carry out a three-day course for the new PCOs, which will be part of the 20-day overall training curriculum for the PCOs.

As to the type of training that will be provided to the PCOs, SIA cabin crew members will train the hospital officers on effective interpersonal communication, customer handling as well as showing values like empathy and warmth.

In the post, the hospital also stated that this is the first time the national carrier is extending its training and development services outside the organisation.

It was also reported that both organisations are looking to explore other potential areas of collaboration beyond the service sector. This includes the possibility of applying SIA’s crew resource management practices, which are an array of skills to improve flight safety and reduce human error, to KTPH’s operations.

“We look forward to building on the success of our collaboration and bringing our partnership to new heights!” the hospital concluded in its post.

In April this year, the national airline provide about 300 Care Ambassadors to different hospitals around the island, taking up manpower gaps due to the influx in COVID-19 cases. These ambassadors helped to give administrative support in hospitals and attended to patients who needed medical care in a non-clinical role.

For instance, their tasks include attending to call bells, following patients to the washrooms, as well as serving meals.

Besides offering their service in hospitals, some SIA cabin crew have also been moved to public transport hubs to be transport ambassadors.