PATIENTS can expect better care from more qualified and less harried nurses once a programme to upgrade the skills of junior nurses takes off this year.

The three-month programme will train them to take over simpler tasks, like drawing patients' blood samples, from the more qualified staff nurses. The juniors, known as enrolled nurses, can also opt to specialise in areas like intensive care, orthopaedics and renal care.

Currently, enrolled nurses with the national certificate in nursing from the Institute of Technical Education act as assistants to registered or staff nurses, who are usually polytechnic diploma holders. They see to patients' basic needs, like feeding them and giving them medicine and do not make decisions on patient care on their own. Neither do they specialise in specific areas, unlike the staff nurses.

But junior nurses who complete the new course can take charge of simple cases. This will free staff nurses for more complex work, said public health group SingHealth's nursing director Lim Swee Hia.

She added: 'We spread out the workload, and you also make the enrolled nurses feel good and think, 'Yes, I'm able to contribute'.'

The programme is offered by the SingHealth Alice Lee Institute of Advanced Nursing, but will be open to nurses from both the public and private sectors. Madam Lim expects the first batch of about 100 nurses to begin training by the end of the year. About a quarter of the 20,167 nurses here are enrolled nurses.