SM Teo Chee Hean at the Opening Ceremony of Punggol Fire Station and Punggol Neighbourhood Police Centre

A More Effective, Integrated and Engaged Home Team, and a Better Home for All

Home Team Colleagues,
Members of Parliament
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning to all of you.

Punggol has undergone significant transformation in recent years, and I am pleased to be here at the Opening Ceremony of Punggol Fire Station and Punggol Neighbourhood Police Centre, an important addition to the facilities here in Punggol. Punggol has become a vibrant and sought after residential town with about 180,000 residents, well known for its beautiful and extensive recreational spaces. We are also working on many exciting new developments, such as the Punggol Digital District, which will integrate smart city technology with master planning to create a more liveable and sustainable environment for the community.

Strengthening Our Home Team

The Punggol Fire Station and Punggol Neighbourhood Police Centre will not just complement Punggol’s development, but also contribute towards our efforts to strengthen our Home Team, by enhancing its Effectiveness, Integration and Engagement with the community. Let me elaborate on what this means.

First, a more effective Home Team. Every organisation in Singapore faces manpower constraints. With the increasing demands for the Home Team’s services, we need to leverage technology to transform our operations and enhance the Home Team’s effectiveness and efficiency. In line with this vision, Punggol Fire Station is Singapore’s first Smart Fire Station, where new technologies are incorporated into various aspects of the fire station to improve its operations.

Punggol Fire Station is equipped with automated fire station access controls that use video analytics such as facial recognition, motion sensing, and automated number plate recognition. Manual processes such as tracking the readiness levels of emergency vehicles have also been automated. This optimises our manpower and enhances our operational response, enabling our firefighters and rescuers to protect Singapore and Singaporeans.

The SPF has also implemented digital systems to augment frontline operations at Punggol NPC. For example, the Automated Equipping System uses two-factor authentication to allow authorised officers to draw their equipment for duty. The equipment is then loaded into the Next-Generation Fast Response Car, where the Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) system allows the equipment to be tracked automatically. These new processes reduce equipping time and cut down manpower that officers have to spend on these purely administrative processes.

Training is another important area where the Home Team has used technology to improve our effectiveness. At Punggol Fire Station, we will have Extended Reality (XR) training systems to provide safe and realistic learning environments. Emergency scenarios can also be easily customised to meet different training needs for trainees. This is complemented by Virtual Reality (VR) technology which allows trainees to learn in realistic, immersive and challenging environments.

Second, a more integrated Home Team. As our operating environment becomes more complex, we need to take a more integrated and coordinated approach to make the best use of our resources and achieve synergies across the Home Team. Punggol Fire Station and Punggol NPC are the latest in a series of joint Home Team facilities, aimed at improving our integration, inter-operability and coordination. Other examples include the Home Team Joint Facility co-located with Kallang Fire Station, as well as the Marina Bay Fire Station co-located with the Marina Bay NPC.

By co-locating our Home Team facilities, training resources can also be shared to achieve greater operational effectiveness. I just talked about the VR and XR training systems at Punggol Fire Station. The co-location of these systems reinforces coordination within and among our firefighting teams, and allows our officers to access these tools more readily, use their time more efficiently and acquire more skills. Another example is the new Multi Façade Training Tower in Punggol Fire Station, which will be used for joint Home Team training sessions involving both firefighters and police officers. SCDF and SPF also conduct regular exercises to enhance our officers’ familiarity with the local terrain, such as the joint anti-terrorism exercise conducted at Punggol MRT Station in January 2020. Such training opportunities foster greater synergy between Home Team officers, bringing about better operational outcomes.

Third, the Home Team must also continue to engage and build on the strong partnership it has with the community and specifically with our community here in Punggol. Members of the community are the Home Team’s eyes and ears, and arms and legs on the ground. Community responders play a critical role in providing prompt assistance during an emergency and to save lives. Each of us has had an opportunity to meet civic-minded residents who have helped their neighbours in a medical emergency, fire or when there are some crimes committed. Community responders play a critical role in providing help and assistance during such emergencies and to save lives. For example, a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival drops by 7-10% every minute. So every minute that passes, the chances of survival will drop by 7-10% if cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) is not applied. A community responder who is nearby can render aid to a cardiac arrest victim before the arrival of the SCDF, improving the victim’s chances of survival. No one can get to you faster than the person who is standing next to you, or a family member nearby.

The co-location of the fire station and NPC offers greater opportunity for joint community engagements. These can be done virtually over social media or in-person here, in the ‘Community Engagement Area’. This purpose-built facility provides a conducive location for the local community, such as the Community Emergency and Engagement Committees (C2Es), to work closely with SCDF and SPF officers to carry out community engagement training and outreach programmes.

For greater convenience to our residents, we will also be bringing these programmes directly to them, through events and visits such as the SGSecure and C2E House Visits. Residents of Punggol Shore can also look forward to the upcoming Community Resilience Day in March, which will be taking place right here at this fire station, to pick up life-saving skills such as first-aid, CPR-AED and learning how to use fire extinguishers.

Launch of the Enhanced AED-on-Wheels Programme

You will never know when these life-saving skills may come in handy, as medical incidents or emergencies can happen anytime and anywhere around us. The SCDF has an AED-on-wheels programme, where taxis and private hire vehicles are equipped with AEDs, and civic-minded and civic-conscious drivers are trained to conduct CPR-AED. If there are cardiac arrest incidents in the vicinity of their location, near where they are, they will be alerted via the SCDF’s myResponder mobile app. This initiative helps to increase the availability and coverage of AEDs in the community.

Today, I am pleased to announce the launch of the enhanced AED-on-Wheels Programme. This will expand the coverage of AEDs on the road to include privately-owned vehicles that belong to registered Community First Responders (CFRs). For a start, about 50 CFRs will be enrolled in this programme, out of a pool of about 150 such CFRs who have expressed interest. By increasing our coverage of AEDs in the community, AEDs can be delivered more quickly to a cardiac arrest victim, significantly increasing his or her chances of survival. Learning how to use an AED is a perfect example of altruistic action which we take, because you can never apply an AED or CPR on yourself - you need somebody else to do it for you. And when you learn, you are getting ready to do it for someone else. The more in the community who do it and learn this skill, the safer all of us will be, even though we each individually know that we will never be able to apply it on ourselves.

Conclusion

A prepared community can make a huge difference during emergencies and help save lives. Punggol Fire Station and Punggol NPC will continue to play a key role towards achieving the Home Team’s mission – working together as one Home Team, and in partnership with the community – to keep Singapore safe and secure.

I would like to thank everyone who has made the first Smart Fire Station in Singapore a reality. I would also like to thank members of the community for providing strong support to the SCDF and the SPF in carrying out their mission to ensure the safety and security of all of us here in Singapore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now declare Punggol Fire Station and Punggol NPC officially open. Thank you.