Health 161
care and the strategies and pathways of action that would help healthcare providers deliver high quality primary care in Hong Kong, at the end of 2010.
The Primary Care Office (PCO) was set up within the DH in September 2010 to support and co-ordinate the development of primary care in Hong Kong, the implementation of primary care development strategies and actions, and the co-ordination of actions among DH, HA, the private healthcare sector, NGOs and other healthcare providers.
Clinic Services
General outpatient clinic services are mainly provided by the private sector. Public primary care services are offered primarily to low-income families, chronic disease patients and other vulnerable groups. In 2010, some 1.32 million people used these services, with 5.18 million attendances recorded. At present, HA operates 74 general outpatient clinics in Hong Kong with some providing family medicine specialist outpatient services.
The Government supports the development of family medicine, provides specialist training in it and assists the integration of primary and secondary care. Some $1.6 billion was spent on outpatient and family medicine services during the 2009-10 financial year.
To promote the development of 'evidence-based' Chinese medicine practice and to increase training opportunities for local Chinese medicine degree programmes graduates, HA has set up 14 Chinese medicine outpatient clinics. A Government subvention of $77 million was provided for running these clinics. A total of 114 289 patients made 658 697 visits to the 14 clinics, and 60 new graduates were recruited into the clinics in 2010. About 28 million outpatient visits are made to Western medicine clinics and seven million to Chinese medicine practitioners' clinics in the private sector each year. The majority of people are able to afford the services provided by these clinics.
Family Health
The DH provides a range of health promotion and disease prevention services through its 31 maternal and child health centres and three women's health centres for children up to five years of age, and women aged 64 or below. These centres offer an integrated child health and development programme for parents and care- givers to promote the holistic health and well-being of children. The core components of the integrated programme are parenting and immunisation, as well as health and developmental surveillance. Antenatal, postnatal, family planning, cervical screening and health education are provided for women. The centres also provide health education including psycho-social health and personal relationships, as well as physical health and healthy lifestyle. Some 26 000 expectant mothers and 67 000 newborn children attended maternal and child health centres in 2010, respectively representing about 29 per cent and 76 per cent of the total.
The Family Planning Association (FPA) of Hong Kong offers services and health information on sexual and reproductive health treatments and counselling at its