156 Health
services (general and specialist) and dental care, was about $21 billion, of which public expenditure accounts for 22 per cent.
In October 2008, the 'Working Group on Primary Care' was reconvened under HMDAC consisting of healthcare professionals from the public and private sectors, patients' representatives and service users, to formulate concrete proposals for strengthening and developing primary healthcare services. In September 2009, the working group and its task forces put forward initial recommendations that included suggestions for:
developing conceptual models and clinical protocols for different chronic diseases and age or gender groups;
phased development of a Primary Care Directory covering different healthcare professions and primary care personnel; and
launching pilot projects in various districts through partnership between the public and private healthcare sectors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to set up community health centres and networks to provide more comprehensive primary care services to patients.
Clinic Services
General outpatient clinic services are mainly provided by the private sector. Public general outpatient clinic services are offered primarily to low-income families, patients with chronic diseases and other vulnerable groups. In 2009, some 1.28 million people used these services, with 5.03 million attendances recorded. At present, the Hospital Authority 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 facilitates the integration of primary and secondary health care. Some $1.6 billion was spent on outpatient and family medicine services during the 2008-09 financial year.
To promote the development of 'evidence-based' Chinese medicine practice and to increase training opportunities for local Chinese medicine degree programmes graduates, the Hospital Authority has set up 14 Chinese medicine outpatient clinics. A Government subvention of $77 million was provided for running these clinics. A total of 84 533 patients made 480 641 visits to the 14 clinics, and 67 new graduates were recruited into the clinics in 2009.
About 26 million outpatient visits are made to Western medicine clinics and six 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 Department of Health provides a range of health promotion and disease prevention services through its 31 maternal and child health centres and three women health centres for children up to five years of age, and women aged 64 or below. These centres offer guidance services for parents and care-givers on child
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