ENG-2019 — Page 190

Health

Hong Kong's Domestic Health Accounts' show total health expenditure increased from 3.6 per cent to 6.2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product from 1989-90 to 2017-18. Over the same period, public health spending ($85.2 billion in 2017-18, or 3.1 per cent of GDP) rose from 40 per cent to 51 per cent of total health expenditure. The government's recurrent funding for health has risen substantially over the past five years, from $54.1 billion in 2014 to $80.6 billion by 2019, an increase of about 49 per cent. On a year-on-year basis, the recurrent funding for health grew more than 13 per cent from $71.2 billion in 2018. It accounted for 18 per cent of the government's recurrent expenditure in 2019.

Healthcare Reform

In response to the challenges of an ageing population, the government is undertaking a number of initiatives to enhance the long-term sustainability of the healthcare system:

• Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme - The scheme was implemented fully on 1 April. It aims to regulate the quality of individual indemnity hospital insurance plans and enhance market transparency, in order to increase consumers' confidence in purchasing hospital insurance, thereby facilitating their use of private health care when needed and relieving pressure on the public healthcare system in the long run.

• Manpower planning and professional development - The government is following up actively on the 10 recommendations in the Report of the Strategic Review of Healthcare Manpower Planning and Professional Development with a view to planning ahead for long- term manpower demand and fostering professional development. It is adopting a multi- pronged approach to boost manpower, including by increasing the number of local subsidised healthcare training places and attracting more qualified non-locally trained healthcare professionals to practise in Hong Kong.

• Regulation of private healthcare facilities - The Private Healthcare Facilities Ordinance, enacted in 2018, provides a new regulatory regime for private healthcare facilities that fits the present landscape of private healthcare services while further protecting patient safety and consumer rights. The government is implementing the regulatory regime in phases based on the types of private healthcare facilities and their risk levels.

Primary Health Care

Primary health care is the first step in the healthcare process. It covers a wide range of public services, including health promotion and disease prevention, general outpatient services and special services for people in specific age groups who do not need immediate hospital

attention.

Services are provided mainly by the private sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). On average, private Western clinics handle about 30 million outpatient visits each year. NGOs

1

A series of accounts compiled over the years in accordance with the International Classification for Health Accounts Framework developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to keep track of Hong Kong's health spending and to allow for international comparison.

144