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Following is a question by the Hon Andrew Cheng and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 20):
Question:
It has been reported earlier that quite a number of nurses who work in the operating theatres of Queen Mary Hospital had taken sick leave together, because they were dissatisfied that they were required to perform excessively long hours of overtime work persistently, resulting in postponement of a number of non-urgent surgical operations. Regarding the problem of nursing manpower in the Hospital Authority (HA), will the Government inform this Council if it knows:
(a) whether HA had recruited all the additional nursing staff provided in the Estimates of that year in each of the past two financial years; if so, among such newly-recruited manpower, of the number of nurses responsible for providing support for the various newly-added medical services; if not, for what purposes the resources concerned have been redeployed;
(b) given that I have learnt that apart from providing existing services, nursing staff of public hospitals are also required to support a number of new services launched by HA in recent years (including community support and multi-disciplinary healthcare services), whether HA has assessed if there are enough nursing staff to provide support for operating theatres and other in-patient services when the new services are launched; of the average number of nurses responsible for providing the services concerned for each bed per shift in the public hospitals under HA in each of the past three years; whether the authorities will consider discussing with HA revising the establishment of nursing staff, including the number of beds for which each nurse working in hospital wards is held responsible; and
(c) the average number of operating theatre nurse specialists who departed from public hospitals in each of the past three years, and whether the various public hospitals can maintain sufficient number of nurse specialists; given that the Government announced in the Policy Address delivered on October 15, 2008 that it would promote the development of private healthcare, whether the Government has assessed how many additional operating theatre nurse specialists are required to be trained in the coming five years to meet the demand of public and private hospitals?
Reply:
President,
(a) The nursing manpower in the Hospital Authority (HA) has increased in the past two years. From 2008/09 to 2009/10 (as at November 30, 2009), the number of full-time equivalent nurses in HA increased from 19,522 to 19,885. These figures are higher than the estimates in the relevant Controlling Officer's Report (COR) in the Budget of these two years by 310 and 465. HA will continue to actively recruit nurses to strengthen its manpower support and meet its service development needs.
New services of HA are provided by service teams which comprise healthcare staff from different disciplines, including doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners. In launching new services, HA takes into account the manpower requirements of existing and new services and assesses the supply of various healthcare professionals at the time so as to determine the appropriate staff mix and arrangements as well as flexibly deploy resources to provide the services.
To strengthen the retention of nurses, HA has implemented a number of initiatives to enhance the professional development of nurses and broaden their promotion pathway. These include strengthening clinical and specialist training for nurses, as well as the introduction of a new three-tier nursing career structure by phases from June 2008 to provide nurses with a clinical promotion ladder in addition to the existing nursing management promotion pathway. Under the new structure, HA has created the post of Nurse Consultant on a pilot basis to broaden the clinical career development pathway of nurses. As at December 31, 2009, a total of seven Nurse Consultants were recruited. HA has also provided higher rate of allowance to Department Operations Managers working in large departments and established additional Advanced Practice Nurse positions in clinical departments to provide more supervisory support. From June 2008 to the end of November 2009, over 580 additional Advanced Practice Nurse positions were created.
At the same time, to strengthen the recruitment of nurses, HA has implemented in recent years several measures to improve the employment conditions of nurses. These include raising the starting pay of nurses, extending the contract period of Registered Nurses to six years, and providing permanent employment opportunities to eligible full-time contract Registered Nurses. Moreover, HA has also implemented various measures to improve the working arrangements of nurses, including employing more clinical supporting staff to support the work of nurses, reducing the non-clinical work handled by nurses, improving the equipment frequently used by nurses to alleviate their workload, as well as increasing the flexibility in recruitment and employing more part-time nurses, etc.
(b) In launching new services, HA takes into account the manpower requirements of existing and new services on various healthcare professionals and assesses the supply of various professionals at the time so as to make appropriate manpower arrangements for providing the services.
HA provides different types and levels of services to patients having regard to the conditions and needs of each patient. As such, HA does not use the ratio of nurse to patient or bed as an indicator in manpower planning. The Administration also has no plan at present to require HA to set a fixed staff establishment. HA will flexibly deploy and adjust its manpower in accordance with the operational needs and service demand of hospitals and departments in various districts.
(c) In the past three years (2007/08, 2008/09 and 2009/10 as at November 30), the turnover of nurses working in operating theatres of public hospitals were 36, 57 and 24 respectively. In the same period, the number of full-time equivalent nurses working in operating theatres of public hospitals increased from 1,040 to 1,063. On the whole, the number of vacancies filled exceeds the number of turnover.
HA conducts manpower planning from time to time and makes assessment on the manpower requirements of various healthcare grades (including nurses). It will also strengthen its manpower support through various measures and make appropriate arrangements in manpower planning and deployment.
The Administration will also continue to assess the supply and demand of healthcare professionals in Hong Kong, including nurses, to facilitate manpower planning. In view of the ageing population and the rising public expectations on the quality of healthcare services, we expect that the local demand for nurses will remain strong. As for the supply of nurses, we anticipate that there will be over 1,400 nurse graduates each year in the coming few years.
Moreover, the University Grants Committee, having considered the views of the Administration, has provided 40 and 50 additional places respectively for nursing programmes at degree and sub-degree levels in the 2009/10 academic year. It will also provide 60 additional senior year places for degree programmes on nursing in the 2010/11 academic year with a view to stepping up the training of nurses to meet the demand. Furthermore, HA also provides nursing training through its re-opened nursing schools and will continue to enhance specialist training for existing nurses.
Ends/Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:05
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