How to become a nursing aide or assistant
Official title: Nursing aide/assistant
Also called: Home care aide, Home health aide, Nursing aide, Nursing aide (clinic, hospital), Nursing aide (home), Nursing assistant, Nursing attendant, Nursing care attendant, Nursing helper, Community Care Associate, Healthcare Assistant/Basic Care Assistant/Nursing Aide, Senior Community Care Associate
Nursing aide/assistant provides or assists with basic care and support under the direction of licensed nursing staff. He/she performs duties such as monitoring of health status, feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, or ambulation of patients in a health, nursing or community care facility, medication administration and other health-related tasks.
Main tasks
- Providing care, support and treatment to patients and residents of medical, rehabilitative and residential care facilities as per treatment plans established by medical, nursing and other health professionals
- Assisting patients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings
- Positioning, lifting and turning patients and transporting them in wheelchairs or on movable beds
- Maintaining patients’ environmental hygiene standards, such as cleaning patient rooms and changing bed-linen
- Observing patients’ condition, responses and behaviour and reporting changes to a health professional
- Providing psychological support to clients such as through conversation or reading aloud
Ways in
- Apprenticeship: Work-study diploma. Related ITE work-study diplomas: Work-Study Diploma in Nursing (In-service Enrolled Nurses only). You are employed by a company and study at ITE at the same time. Peernovo matched these from course names.
- Polytechnic or ITE: ITE course (Nitec or Higher Nitec). Related ITE courses: Higher Nitec in Nursing. Peernovo matched these from course names; ITE does not publish which jobs each course leads to.; Polytechnic diploma. Related diplomas: Diploma in Nursing (Ngee Ann Polytechnic). Peernovo matched these from course names; polytechnics do not publish which jobs each course leads to.
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Median pay: $36,000 a year. The middle half earn $29,184 to $40,572 a year.
- Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
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Questions people ask
How do I become a nursing aide or assistant?
Ways in include: ITE course (Nitec or Higher Nitec); Polytechnic diploma; Work-study diploma.
How much does a nursing aide or assistant earn in Singapore?
Median full-time pay is $36,000 a year (Ministry of Manpower (via data.gov.sg)). The middle half earn $29,184 to $40,572.
Will AI change the work of a nursing aide or assistant?
Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- Ministry of Manpower (via data.gov.sg): Resident Occupational Wages (Occupational Wage Survey) (June 2024 (data.gov.sg update 2026-04-01)), Singapore Open Data Licence v1.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026