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Reply:
During the past three years, the Authority has progressively devolved management responsibilities, including budgetary control, to the hospital level. During the process, the various components of the budget have been decentralised to hospitals in phases. This has involved significant budgetary adjustments and redefinition of cost centres. The implementation of hospital clustering and service networking also helped rationalise service delivery and delineate clearly the roles and responsibilities of different institutions within the same geographical region, resulting in reorganisation and transfer of activities and services with consequential budgetary adjustments.
This process of adjustment has now been completed and the budgets for individual hospitals in 1995/96 will be a more accurate reflection of their clinical role and scope of activities. The budgets for 1995/96 are being presented to the Hospital Governing Committees and will be available to Members within one month. The breakdown of budgets by hospital in 1993/94 and 1994/95 is at Annex.
Global resource allocation is conducted by the Hospital Authority through its annual planning process, during which quality standards and performance targets are set to facilitate outcome monitoring. The criteria adopted in this process are based on the volume, scope, level and complexity of services involved. Given an improved role delineation between institutions and the revamped mechanism for resource allocation, small hospitals will be able to bid on an objective basis for additional funds based on their service targets and aspired achievements.