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Following is a question by the Hon Wong Yuk-man and a reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (March 27):
Question:
I have received requests for assistance from quite a number of members of the public. They pointed out that some elderly people in an unsatisfactory state of health and in need of care services had been assessed under the current Standardised Care Need Assessment Mechanism for Elderly Services (SCNAMES) as having no urgent need for admission to subsidised residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) and therefore had to wait a long time for the places in such homes. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the criteria based on which the Social Welfare Department assesses under SCNAMES whether an elderly person has an urgent need for admission to a subsidised RCHE; and
(b) given that the aforesaid group of elderly people need to stay in private RCHEs while waiting for admission to subsidised RCHEs, and private RCHEs often charge such group of elderly people higher accommodation fees, but the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance payments granted to them are insufficient to pay for such fees, whether the Government will consider providing special financial assistance to such group of elderly people; if it will not, of the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the question raised by the Hon Wong Yuk-man is as follows:
(a) The Social Welfare Department (SWD) has implemented the Standardised Care Need Assessment Mechanism for Elderly Services (SCNAMES) and the Central Waiting List for Subsidised Long Term Care Services (CWL) since November 2000 and November 2003 respectively for the purpose of providing a better allocation mechanism for subsidised long-term care (LTC) services for elderly applicants.
SCNAMES adopts an internationally recognised assessment tool named ¡§Minimum Data Set ¡V Home Care¡@(MDS-HC)¡¨ to identify the LTC needs of the elderly people. The scope of the assessment criteria is comprehensive, including applicants' abilities in carrying out daily activities, their physical functioning, memory, communication skills, behaviour and emotion, health conditions, the environmental risk and their abilities in coping with daily living, etc. The assessment is conducted by accredited assessors.
After applicants' LTC needs have been confirmed by SCNAMES, their applications will be listed in CWL for suitable LTC services allocation (ie residential care services (RCS) or community care services (CCS) or both) in accordance with the assessment results and the recommended service matching. At present, about 62% of the elderly eligible for LTC services are matched to both RCS and CCS according to the assessment results. Under CWL, LTC services will be allocated to the applicants in accordance with the order of their application dates and their indicated preferences.
For RCS, applicants may indicate their preference on the locations (in terms of region, district or specific home), religious background and diet provision of the homes. Besides, applicants may indicate whether they would accept subsidised places provided under various bought place schemes, or even request admission to the same homes with their family members, relatives or friends at the same time, etc. Generally speaking, waiting time can be shortened if applicants have not indicated any preference over the choice of the residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs), especially for care-and-attention place applications. According to the statistics as at January 2013, for applicants who had accepted subsidised places provided under the Enhanced Bought Place Scheme (EBPS), their average waiting time was eight months. For those applicants who had accepted subsidised places under EBPS and at the same time had no indicated preferences including location, diet and religious background, etc of the home, an EBPS place could be offered within one month at the earliest.
For applicants who genuinely have urgent needs for taking up residential care places, where their needs cannot be met by the provision of CCS or admission to self-financing/private RCS, nor do they have family members or friends to provide adequate care and support in the community, case workers responsible for the elderly applicants concerned could make a recommendation to SWD after vetting the cases for providing priority placement at subsidised RCHEs.
(b) Elderly persons in financial hardship, regardless of whether they are living at home or in residential care homes, may apply for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) to meet their basic needs. At present, the CSSA Scheme has set a higher asset limit for elderly applicants and provided higher standard rates, special grants and supplements for elderly recipients to meet their special needs.
Having regard to the fact that some elderly persons in need of RCS are residing in non-subsidised RCHEs, we have introduced since June 2012 a Residential Care Supplement under the CSSA Scheme for recipients aged 60 or above who occupy non-subsidised residential care places so as to ease their financial burden. The current amount of the Supplement is $275 per month.
Depending on their health conditions, singleton elderly recipients living in non-subsidised residential care places may receive CSSA monthly payments generally ranging from $4,803 to $6,868. Elderly recipients may deploy their CSSA payments to meet their individual needs, including their residential care expenses. Besides, depending on their individual circumstances, elderly recipients may also receive special grants to meet their special needs (such as transport fares to and from hospital/clinic, costs of medically recommended diets, costs of medical and rehabilitation appliances (including diapers), etc).
Ends/Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Issued at HKT 13:07
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