Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Email this article news.gov.hk
LCQ12: Filling vacancies of doctors
***********************************

    Following is a question by the Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (April 23):

Question:

    It is learnt that a vacancy arising from the retirement of a Consultant of Tuen Mun Hospital was left vacant for a long time before being filled by a promoted doctor, resulting in the medical services of the hospital being adversely affected in the period concerned.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:

(a)  in each of the past three years, the respective year-end numbers of incumbent Consultants, Associate Consultants and Senior Medical Officers ("SMOs") in public hospitals, as well as the respective numbers of those who left and those who were appointed to such posts;

(b)  the respective average periods for which vacancies of Consultants, Associate Consultants and SMOs in public hospitals in the past three years were left vacant before being filled;

(c)  the respective five longest periods for which vacancies were left vacant among those vacancies of Consultants, Associate Consultants and SMOs in hospitals under the New Territories West Cluster in the past three years, and the reasons for such vacancies being left vacant for a prolonged period; and

(d)  if the Hospital Authority has considered taking measures to expedite the filling of vacancies of doctors; if it has not, of the reasons for that?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a)  The numbers of Consultants, Associate Consultants and Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) who are in service, leaving service and newly appointed in all hospital clusters under the Hospital Authority (HA) in each of the past three years are shown in Annex.

    According to the data in recent years, it takes seven years on average for a Resident to obtain a specialist qualification and about another four years for promotion to SMO or Associate Consultant after acquiring the specialist qualification.  For an SMO or Associate Consultant to be promoted to Consultant, it needs an average of about six years.  The number of doctors appointed in various hospital clusters varies depending on the structure of the respective specialty and the service demand in the respective cluster.

(b)  HA does not have any statistics on the average lead time between a doctor leaving service and the vacancy being formally filled. 

    But in general, when a doctor leaves service, the cluster management will first conduct a review to see if there is a need to fill the vacancy having regard to the service demand and manpower deployment.  In parallel, acting appointment by a suitable doctor will be arranged to ensure that the services will not be affected.  If the vacancy has to be filled, the hospital concerned will issue a vacancy circular within two weeks to proceed with the recruitment exercise. An assessment panel will then be set up within one and a half months thereafter for conducting an interview with the applicants.  If no suitable applicant is found after the first round of interview, another round of recruitment and interview will normally be conducted within one to three months depending on the prevailing manpower supply.  After a suitable applicant is selected, arrangement will be made for him/her to be transferred out from his/her original post and to take up the new position within two to three months.  As such, the time for an incoming doctor to formally take up the vacant position varies from case to case, depending on the time required for the recruitment and selection exercise, the availability of a suitable candidate and the time when the appointed staff member can formally report for duty.

(c)  In the past three years (i.e. from 2005 to 2007), the average lead time between the departure of outgoing Consultants, Associate Consultants and SMOs in the New Territories West Cluster and the arrival of incoming officers to formally fill the vacancies was two and a half months.  The average lead time in the five most prolonged cases of unfilled vacancies ranged between four and nine months.  The reasons include the absence of professionally qualified candidates.  Furthermore, the appointment of Consultants involves strict selection procedures.  The applicants are subject to assessment by a selection board comprising a number of professionals and this usually involves a longer selection period.  Since departments would make corresponding manpower deployment and service arrangement upon the departure or retirement of a staff member, normally the services would not be affected.

(d)  Between 2005-06 and 2007-08, the overall number of doctors (full-time equivalents) in all hospital clusters saw an increase of 39.3, 47 and 107.8 each year respectively.  This shows that the overall number of doctors in HA keeps on increasing.

    Furthermore, HA has put in place various measures for retaining its doctors.  These include: (i) introduction of more flexible employment terms and remuneration package for part-time employment since August 2007 to attract more part-time doctors; (ii) implementation of salary adjustment for Residents from Point 27 - 38 to Point 30 - 44B of the HA General Pay Scale (HGPS) since October 2007; awarding additional salary increments to doctors who have successfully passed a specialist examination; and adjustment of starting salary for Associate Consultants from Point 40 to 45 of the HGPS; (iii) allowing qualified contract doctors to apply for transfer to full-time employment on permanent terms; (iv) provision of better training and development opportunities to facilitate the professional development of doctors; and (v) carrying out pilot programmes on doctor work reform to improve the working environment of doctors.

Ends/Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:01

NNNN

Print this page