SINGAPORE — With demand for services catering to the elderly on the rise, the PAP Community Foundation (PCF), which operates kindergarten and childcare services, will be branching out into senior care.

It plans to set up 10 to 15 senior care centres islandwide, offering services such as rehabilitation, dementia care, social day care and nursing care at affordable rates.

The first of these centres will be set up at Block 120 Simei Street 1 by the middle of next year, accommodating up to 60 seniors at a time. The second centre would probably be in the Yew Tee area.

Announcing the plans yesterday at PCF’s Family Day at Universal Studios Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: “As our society’s needs change, the PCF has also changed to meet these new needs.”

The senior care centre at Simei will provide healthcare and social care services to seniors and support working family caregivers who need a break.

Seniors above 60 years old and those referred by hospitals and the Agency for Integrated Care will be eligible to enrol at the centre. Up to 80 per cent of the costs — which have yet to be determined — can be subsidised for seniors who need it.

Speaking to reporters at the event, PCF Executive Committee chairman Lawrence Wong said that as the population ages, there has been a growing demand for eldercare services.

“In some of our centres, the enrolment for kindergarten has been coming down and it’s been a shift in demand,” said Mr Wong, who is also Minister for Culture, Community and Youth. “People (are) asking for eldercare instead of pre-school services.”

Where demand for pre-school services has fallen, the premises may be converted into an eldercare or senior care centre, he said. “In this case, we’ll make sure that any remaining kindergarten students are taken care of by transferring them to another kindergarten nearby ... But beyond these centres, another way in which we can build senior care centres is to participate in a tender.”

Similar care centres for the elderly include those run by voluntary welfare organisations such as St Luke’s ElderCare or private players such as Orange Valley. NTUC Eldercare, a cooperative under the labour movement, operates eight Silver Circle centres, which offer day care and additional services such as dementia care and active rehabilitation.

When asked how the PCF would keep fees affordable, Mr Wong said the foundation offered services on a not-for-profit basis, adding that it would continue to operate efficiently so it can keep costs low. “We have enough scale and we are large enough … to operate efficiently,” he said. “So, with that kind of scale and critical (mass) … we will continue to try to operate as efficiently as possible, whether it’s pre-school or senior care.”

The fees at these centres would not be very different from sector norms. “We will look at what the benchmarks are in the industry (and) what the guidelines are, based on what (the Ministry of Health) has set and, certainly, we will benchmark accordingly,” Mr Wong said.