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integrated health service including health assessment, physical check-up, counselling, curative treatment, and health education to people aged 65 and above. Visiting health teams reach into the community and residential care settings to conduct health promotion activities for the elderly and to provide training to carers to enhance their health knowledge and skills in caring for the elderly.

Clinics

The Department of Health operates 20 methadone clinics, 19 tuberculosis and chest clinics, eight social hygiene clinics, four dermatology clinics, one integrated treatment centre, three clinical genetic clinics, seven child assessment centres and other clinic services. About 7.9 million visits to clinics were recorded in 2004. The Hospital Authority operates 74 general out-patient clinics and three Chinese medicine out-patient clinics. There were continuing efforts in promoting the development of family medicine at these clinics and enhancing the integration of primary and specialist care.

Apart from public service facilities, the community may seek medical treatment from the private sector, which includes medical practitioners working in private practice and 175 clinics registered under the Medical Clinics Ordinance.

Dental Health

Preventive services are delivered through the School Dental Care Service of the Department of Health which provides annual dental examination and basic dental care to about 426 500 children annually. A 24-hour interactive voice response system at the telephone hotline provides voice and fax information on the service and on oral health. The public can also visit the School Dental Care Service homepage (http://www.schooldental.gov.hk) for updated information. The Department of Health. monitors the level of fluoridation in the communal water supply in order to reduce dental decay among the population.

Specialist oral health care services are provided to hospital in-patients and those with special oral health needs. In addition, there are 11 designated dental clinics which provide emergency dental service to the public.

Hospital and Development Programmes

The demand for hospital services rebounded after the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). In 2004, there were 844 000 discharges, 6 048 000 specialist out-patient attendances and 5 278 000 general out-patient attendances. Accident and emergency departments of major public hospitals had 2 070 000 attendances, or 5 656 per day.

The international trend has been to focus on the development of ambulatory and community care programmes. In line with this development, starting from 2001-02, the allocation of public funding for public hospital services has been changed from the facility-based approach to a population-based approach to encourage the mobilisation of resources from institutions to community settings. The new funding arrangement has facilitated the further development of the Hospital Authority's ambulatory and community outreach programmes. In 2004, the Hospital

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