ENG-2008 — Page 208

156 Health

following aspects and initiating the first-stage public consultation which lasted for three months:

(a) improve primary care;

(b) promote public-private partnership in healthcare;

(c) develop electronic health record sharing;

(d) strengthen public healthcare safety net; and

(e) reform healthcare financing arrangement.

The Report on the First Stage Public Consultation on Healthcare Reform was released in December, summarising the views of different sectors of the community and the general public. Results showed that the community generally recognised the need for healthcare reform; that the community had a clear consensus on the service reform proposals and felt that the Government should act on them. The majority of members of the public also saw the need to address the issue of healthcare financing to sustain the development of Hong Kong's healthcare system. Most agreed that there was a need to discuss the issue further.

The Government is committed to increasing the recurrent funding for healthcare services, and making the best use of the increased funding over the next few years to introduce service reforms and improve healthcare services. Meanwhile, based on the views collected in the first stage of public consultation, the Government will continue to explore issues about healthcare financing and consider proposals before consulting the public further.

Primary Healthcare Services

People requiring primary healthcare do not need to go to a hospital for it. It's the first step in the healthcare process. Public healthcare organisations provide general outpatient services, as well as specialised healthcare, or specialist medical treatment, for special age groups. Primary healthcare consists of a wide range of public health services, including health promotion and disease prevention services.

According to the DHA for 2004-05, Hong Kong's expenditure on primary healthcare, which includes spending on public general out-patient clinics, private out-patient services (general and specialist) and dental care, amounted to about $19.2 billion in 2004-05, with the share of the public expenditure accounting for 24 per cent.

In 2008, the Government set up a 'Working Group on Primary Care' consisting of healthcare professionals from the public and private sectors, patients' representatives and service users to formulate concrete proposals for reforming and strengthening healthcare. The team has several task forces under it. The Government will explore a new method of rendering primary healthcare in accordance with the community health centre model which enlists the help of the public and private sectors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The Government will introduce a number of pilot models to strengthen primary healthcare services.