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Following is a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 10):
Question:
The Hospital Authority (HA) is progressively extending the Telephone Booking Service implemented for patients with episodic illnesses (i.e. patients who do not require regular follow-up consultations) to all its general outpatient clinics. I have received a number of complaints from the elderly that, owing to a limited quota on the outpatient consultation service and the complex telephone booking procedure, they find it difficult to book consultation appointments, and that different clinics using different booking telephone numbers also causes inconvenience to them. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of complaints received by HA so far about the Telephone Booking Service;
(b) if HA will, from the perspective of facilitating patients, consider the alternative of assigning a single telephone number for the Telephone Booking Service, and of the resource and technical difficulties for HA to provide at the same time different means for booking consultation appointments, including queuing up in person, through the Internet or interactive telephone system; and
(c) if HA will consider increasing the quota for outpatient consultation service, thereby alleviating patients' anxiety arising from the fear of failure to secure an consultation appointment; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President:
The main purpose of the telephone booking service introduced by the Hospital Authority (HA) in its general out-patient clinics (GOPCs) is to address the public demands for improving the crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs, and making optimal use of the resources in public general out-patient service. In the past, patients often had to line up outside the GOPCs in person in the early morning hours for a consultation slot, and quite a number of members of the public and this Council had expressed concern over such a situation. In July 2005, this Council passed a motion urging the Administration to improve the out-patient service and its appointment arrangements.
In light of the above, HA has implemented the telephone booking service in its GOPCs on Hong Kong Island since November 2005 on a trial basis. As the effect of the telephone booking service has been generally favourable, HA has progressively extended the service to its GOPCs in Kowloon and the New Territories since October 2006 and the service has been in operation for some three months. The result achieved is noticeable. The crowded waiting condition at GOPCs has significantly improved and patients no longer need to line up outside GOPCs early in the morning. It is now easier for them to select their preferred consultation session and clinic, making optimal use of the resources for public general out-patient service.
The telephone booking service is still in its early days of territory-wide operation. It takes time for all the parties involved to adapt to this new service, and the telephone booking system itself also has room for improvements. HA has been embarking upon a series of improvement measures including: further stepping up publicity, education and support to patients, especially the elderly, on the use of the telephone booking service; streamlining the workflow of making appointments through the telephone booking system to make it easier to use; and allowing flexibility for those patients who have genuine difficulty in using the telephone booking service and offering them assistance as far as possible. The Administration, in conjunction with HA, will continue to closely monitor the operation of the telephone booking service, and regularly review and enhance the system where appropriate.
Our reply to the different parts of the question is as follows:
(a) HA has so far received a total of 46 complaints regarding the telephone booking service since its introduction last year.
(b) The computer system of the telephone booking service is designed to be as user-friendly as possible to make it easier for patients to use. We note that most patients are used to seeking consultation at specific clinics. Therefore, it is more convenient for them to make booking through a separate telephone number for each clinic and the steps involved for using the booking system would be simpler. Meanwhile, the computer system of the telephone booking service has an automatic search function which, when a particular clinic has exhausted all its consultation slots, will connect automatically to nearby clinics to search for remaining time slots available for patients' selection. HA will strengthen its publicity efforts about the telephone numbers for booking and enquiries of the GOPCs in each district.
Besides, the implementation of telephone booking service is mainly to improve the crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs. Long waiting queues outside clinics will re-appear if we re-open queuing as a means of booking in addition to telephone booking. Furthermore, though in its early days of implementation, the telephone booking service has already achieved quite some improvements to the crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs. For the time being, HA has to focus its resources on promoting and improving the telephone booking service. It takes time for members of the public to adapt to the telephone booking service, and telephone is the most accessible communication device for majority of the target users of public out-patient services. Therefore, HA will not consider for the time-being other modes of booking service, including arranging for appointments via the Internet or allowing queuing up at clinics again.
(c) At present, public out-patient service is primarily targeted at the underprivileged groups, including the chronically ill, frail and vulnerable elders, and low income families. We are conducting preliminary planning to establish another GOPC in Tin Shui Wai. However, generally speaking increasing consultation quota is not necessarily the most effective way to improve existing service. In the long run, we will continue to explore ways of enhancing the overall primary health care services. These include introducing family doctor based services, and encouraging private doctors to enhance the quality of their professional services, improve the transparency of the fees they charge, offer more convenient consultation sessions to the public, and strengthen their efforts on disease prevention. The public general out-patient service will continue to target the underprivileged groups, promote family doctor based services as the model of primary health care services, and provide training opportunities to primary healthcare and family health practitioners.
Ends/Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:43
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