ENG-1994 — Page 239

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SOCIAL WELFARE

during the day, allowing their families to attend to urgent business. For working parents, there are three day nurseries where children are cared for beyond normal working hours. Families with low income may make use of the Fee Assistance Scheme in meeting creche and nursery fees. A total of 9 919 children were receiving fee assistance at the end of the year.

The Social Welfare Department operates a telephone hotline service, answering enquiries and providing professional advice to the public on social welfare matters.

Medical Social Service

The Social Welfare Department continues to provide medical social services in public hospitals and clinics to help patients and their families deal with their personal and family problems arising from illness or disability.

Care of the Elderly

The White Paper Social Welfare into the 1990s and Beyond laid down care in the community, and by the community, as the guiding principle for the planning and development of services for elderly people. The Working Group on Care for the Elderly, set up in November 1993 to review services for this group, reaffirmed that the principle of care in the community is pivotal to the provision of services.

In 1994–95, $6.8 billion will be spent on the elderly.

Community support services are provided to help families look after their elderly members and to enable old people to live with dignity in the community for as long as possible. These services include home help, day care, social and recreational facilities, canteens, community education, outreaching services for elderly people at risk and respite care. At the end of the year, there were 89 home help teams, 153 social centres, 21 multi-service centres, 18 day care centres, 17 respite care places, a holiday centre and two outreaching teams. Financial assistance includes social security assistance and special allowances. Housing assistance, comprising compassionate rehousing and priority allocation of public housing, continues to be available for those eligible. Sheltered housing is also provided, both in private flats and public housing estates, for 2 759 elderly people who are capable of living independently.

Residential facilities are provided for those who, for health or other reasons, are unable to look after themselves and who have no relatives or friends to help them. At the end of 1994, there were 1 156 hostel (self-care) places, 6 389 places in homes for the aged and 6 247 places in care-and-attention homes.

The Registration Office of Private Homes for the Elderly offers advice and assistance to private homes for the elderly to assist them to provide an acceptable standard of service. Higher service standards are encouraged through a voluntary registration scheme and through an offer to buy places from registered homes under the bought places scheme.

To provide a regulatory framework and a set of uniform standards for all homes for old people, the Residential Care Home (Elderly Persons) Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council in November 1993. The Bill was passed in October 1994.

Aside from the setting up of the $200 million Elderly Services Development Fund, the government is to embark on a large number of initiatives to improve services for the elderly as a result of the report of the Working Group on Care for the Elderly. It is estimated that the