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The Hospital Authority today (October 4) announced the establishment of a Steering Committee on Doctor Working Hour to review and formulate recommendations to improve the issues related to long working hours of public hospital doctors.
Executive Councillor and former Chairman of the Hospital Authority Dr Leong Che-hung will head the Steering Committee.
Announcing the appointment today, the authority's Chief Executive Mr Shane Solomon, expressed gratitude to Dr Leong for sparing his valuable time to take up this challenging task by contributing his wealth of experience and knowledge in the medical profession.
"This is also part of the authority's continuous efforts and commitment to enhance the working conditions for public hospital doctors."
Talking about his appointment and the work of the steering committee, Dr Leong said the issue of public doctors' long and continuous working hours had been the subject of concern both by the public and the staff for quite some time.
"I welcome the setting up of this steering committee, hopeful proposals could be made to the Hospital Authority to even better serve the public. Any suggestions and proposals made by the committee will require wide consultation. In this aspect, I am glad to see the establishment of two advisory committees where frontline doctors can have their valuable input," Dr Leong said.
Mr Solomon was also pleased to announce the appointment of two overseas health care experts from the UK and Australia to the steering committee. Mr Andrew Foster, the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development of Fylde and Wyre Hospitals NHS Trust of Blackpool, was appointed to the committee in his personal capacity. Another expert is Dr Sherene Devanesen, currently the Chief Executive of Peninsula Health in Victoria.
Mr Foster said he was honoured to have been invited to join the committee to look at reduction in doctors' hours in Hong Kong. "In the UK we have spent the last 15 years reducing hours for doctors in training from as many as 100 per week to the average now of approximately 56 and we need to cut them further over the next three years," Mr Foster said. "Shorter hours are better and safer, both for doctors and patients, but reducing them is a complex and challenging task. I hope that I can bring the lessons that we have learnt in the UK - both good and bad - to help the Hong Kong Hospital Authority achieve success in this important project."
Dr Davanesen was also pleased to accept the invitation to be on the steering committee and hoped that the sharing of experiences between our health services would assist to find a way forward for the Hospital Authority."
The steering committee is tasked with reducing the excessive working hours of doctors with the first target of not exceeding 65 hours in a week in three years; and also reduce the excessively long continuous working hours of doctors to a reasonable level. There will be two advisory committees under the steering committee to advise from the frontline and service delivery perspectives respectively. They are the Doctors Staff Group Consultative Committee and the Cluster Administrative and Specialty Advisory Committee.
With the target of submitting a report to the authority's Chief Executive in nine months time, the steering committee will focus its works in the following five areas:
1. To steer and develop strategy
2. To analyse and identify best practice for doctor working hours
3. To advise on how to achieve the 65 hours target and reduce excessive continuous working hours
4. To review feedback and advices from the two advisory committees
5. To recommend an implementation plan
According to the scheduled time frame, the recommendations, if endorsed, will be first implemented as a pilot phase in selected hospital clusters and specialty service units, then rolled out to all hospitals clusters and specialties subsequently.
Ends/Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Issued at HKT 17:55
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