SINGAPORE – Patients at the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital will soon be able to get a taste of the Singapore Airlines (SIA) service, with the carrier’s cabin crew trainers set to train a new group of staff there from next month.

The new staff, called patient care officers, will work with doctors, nurses and allied health staff to provide care service, care-giving and end-to-end care coordination for patients.

KTPH and SIA signed a memorandum of understanding on the partnership on Thursday (Aug 20).

It builds on the care ambassadors programme the two organisations jointly launched in April that lets crew members who are not flying to help at the hospital in a non-clinical role.

The new agreement marks the first time that SIA is offering its training and development services to an external organisation.

SIA’s cabin crew trainers will conduct a three-day course, which will be part of a full 20-day training curriculum for the patient care officers.

They will train the officers on effective interpersonal communication, customer handling, and showing values such as empathy and warmth.

SIA senior vice-president of human resources Vanessa Ng, who noted that SIA is well-known for its customer service, said: “We may all be behind masks due to the pandemic, but our signature personal touch and intuitive care remain the key differentiator in the service industry.

“SIA can support companies and organisations with our experience and expertise in this area, and adapt our courses to meet their specific customer and industry requirements.”

KTPH chief operating officer Yen Tan said the work of the 60 SIA crew temporarily deployed at the hospital had inspired it to create the new permanent role.

“We look forward to building on the success of our collaboration with the signing of today’s MOU, as we bring our service training and crew resource management to the next level.”

SIA and KTPH are also looking into other areas of collaboration.

This includes the application of SIA’s crew resource management practices, which are a range of skills to enhance flight safety and reduce human error, to KTPH’s operations.

More than 1,700 SIA employees, including ground staff, pilots and cabin crew, have signed up for volunteer positions and jobs in external organisations with air travel demand decimated.

Of these, 1,400 have taken on roles as ambassadors in places such as hospitals and public transport to support the fight against Covid-19.

The large majority of SIA’s cabin crew have not taken to the air in months as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic leading to a collapse in international air travel.

The carrier is currently operating at just 7 per cent of its scheduled passenger capacity as compared to the levels before Covid-19, and a full recovery is not expected till 2024.

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