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Following is the speech (translated from Chinese) by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, in presenting the Government Minute in response to the Report of the Public Accounts Committee No. 63 in the Legislative Council today (May 20):
President,
Laid on the table today is the Government Minute (GM) responding to Report No. 63 of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
When presenting Report No. 63 on February 11 to the Legislative Council (LegCo), the Chairman of PAC gave comments on three chapters in the Director of Audit's Report:
(a) Provision of long-term care services for the elderly;
(b) Provision of health services for the elderly; and
(c) New Civil Aviation Department Headquarters.
We are grateful for the time and efforts that the PAC has devoted to investigating these subjects. We accept the Committee's various recommendations and have set out in detail the specific responses of the relevant bureaux/departments in the GM. Today, I would like to highlight the key measures that we have taken in these important subjects and the progress.
Provision of long-term care services for the elderly
With the ever-growing elderly population, the Government strives to implement a series of measures to strengthen elderly services on all fronts. The resources committed by the Government to elderly care welfare services have continued to increase in the past years. The relevant recurrent government expenditure has increased from around $3.9 billion in 2010-11 to about $6.8 billion in 2015-16, representing an increase of 73.6 per cent.
In line with the policy of promoting "ageing in place as the core, institutional care as back-up", the Government has been making strenuous effort in strengthening the provision of various types of subsidised community care and support services. For home care services, all of the 1 666 additional Enhanced Home and Community Care Services (EHCCS) places will have commenced service in June 2015. At the same time, the service content of all EHCCS places has been strengthened. In addition, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) is implementing the Pilot Scheme on Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly, which adopts a "money-following-the-user" approach. SWD will take into account the findings of the mid-term review of the Pilot Scheme and work out the details of the next phase.
The funding allocation for subsidised community care and support services in 2015-16 is estimated to reach $2.33 billion, representing an increase of around 14.5 per cent over the provision for last year. From 2015-16 to 2016-17, it is estimated that some 100 new day care places could commence service. SWD has also earmarked sites in eight development projects for the construction of day care centres/units for the elderly, providing an estimated total of 370 additional day care places. In addition, SWD will make flexible use of day care places to serve elderly persons living in districts with longer waiting time through cross-district arrangement.
For elderly persons who are not suitable for ageing at home owing to their health conditions or other reasons, the Government will continue to increase the provision of residential care places through a multi-pronged approach. In 2015-16, resources committed by the Government to providing subsidised residential care services will reach $4.26 billion, representing an increase of some 8.4 per cent over the provision for last year. Around 1 710 additional subsidised residential care places for the elderly will be put to operational use between 2014-15 and 2017-18. SWD has also earmarked sites in 11 development projects for the construction of new residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) to provide about 1 200 new residential care places for the elderly. In addition, the Government has commissioned the Elderly Commission (EC) to conduct a feasibility study of the voucher scheme on residential care services for the elderly adopting the "money-following-the-user" approach with a view to better utilising the residential care places at non-subsidised RCHEs and providing incentives for these RCHEs to improve their service quality. In this regard, the Government has earmarked about $800 million to issue a total of 3 000 residential care service vouchers by phases over three years from 2015-16 to 2017-18. In the meantime, the Government will continue to identify suitable sites for constructing more contract RCHEs.
For the medium to long term, the Government injected $10 billion into the Lotteries Fund in early 2014 to facilitate the implementation of the Special Scheme on Privately Owned Sites for Welfare Uses by the Labour and Welfare Bureau. It aims to better utilise the sites granted to non-governmental organisations through expansion and redevelopment, with a view to providing more residential care places and day care places for the elderly as well as rehabilitation facilities which are in great demand. The Scheme has received positive responses from over 40 organisations, involving more than 60 projects. If all these projects could be implemented as proposed by the organisations, as many as 17 000 additional service places would be provided for the elderly and persons with disabilities, including around 7 000 residential care places and 2 000 day care places for the elderly.
The Government agrees that effective measures should be taken to improve the service matching and allocation mechanism for subsidised elderly care services. SWD has commissioned a consultancy study to update the assessment tool of the Standardised Care Need Assessment Mechanism for Elderly Services. The updating process is expected to be completed by 2016. This will help SWD suitably allocate long-term care services in accordance with the need and urgency of the elderly applicants.
The Government agrees that there is a need to expedite the long-term care services planning for the elderly in the face of the immense challenges posed by our rapidly ageing population. As announced by the Chief Executive in his 2014 Policy Address, EC is tasked with the formulation of the Elderly Services Programme Plan. EC is now actively taking forward the task, including the organisation of public engagement activities, and is expected to submit its report to the Government in mid-2016.
Provision of health services for the elderly
On the provision of health services for the elderly, the Government generally welcomes and accepts the recommendations made by the Audit Commission (Audit) and the PAC of the LegCo on the health services for the elderly provided by the Department of Health (DH) and the Hospital Authority (HA).
Services of DH
Adopting the family medicine approach which emphasises holistic care, continuity, teamwork and multi-disciplinary input, the Elderly Health Centres (EHCs) provide comprehensive primary health care to the elderly. The Government notes members' concerns over the long waiting time for first-time health assessments, and will review and monitor the workload of each EHC with a view to implementing measures to enhance service efficiency and shorten waiting time.
PAC recommends that DH should conduct a comprehensive review of EHCs' mode of operation to better cope with the growth in service demand arising from an ageing population. DH has been reviewing the service capacity and mode of operation of EHCs from time to time, and will follow up the Audit's recommendation for improvement. Nevertheless, the service of EHCs alone would not be able to fully meet the challenges of growing demand for elderly healthcare services arising from the ageing population. Therefore, the Government should adopt a multi-pronged approach to provide primary healthcare service for the elderly by implementing different initiatives and service models. To this end, we have mapped out a long-term primary care development strategy and implemented a number of measures and pilot projects on different primary care delivery models for elderly health services in the past few years, such as the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme (EHCVS) and the Elderly Health Assessment Pilot Programme (EHAPP). DH will review the EHCs' capacity and strategic directions in the light of the experience gained through these new models of service provision. A comprehensive review of the EHCVS will be conducted in mid-2015 and an evaluation of the implementation of the EHAPP will be completed by end-2015/early 2016.
Meanwhile, DH will continue to promote these programmes to the elderly and explore different ways to encourage participation of healthcare service providers in the EHCVS as well as strengthen monitoring measures to ensure proper use of public fund.
Services of HA
HA is committed to providing quality health services to the public (including the elderly). We understand the public's concerns over the waiting time at the specialist outpatient clinics. HA has already implemented further measures to improve the relevant services. These measures include:
(a) enhancing public primary care service;
(b) strengthening manpower;
(c) implementing public-private partnership;
(d) enhancing transparency by uploading the waiting time information of all eight major specialties to HA's website;
(e) implementing arrangement to facilitate cross-cluster appointment booking for consultation; and
(f) improving the appointment scheduling arrangement.
Moreover, HA has in recent years extended the Community Geriatric Assessment Service (CGAS), now covering around 89 per cent RCHEs in the territory. HA will continue to review the service model and provision of CGAS and consider providing the service to more RCHEs as appropriate.
New Civil Aviation Department Headquarters
Finally, on the new Civil Aviation Department (CAD) Headquarters. The Government attaches great importance to the observations and recommendations set out in the reports of the Audit and the PAC regarding the new CAD headquarters project. The CAD and the Architectural Services Department have implemented various measures to enhance internal control and alerted their staff to the experience and lessons learnt from the audit findings. Details have been set out in the Government Minute in response to the PAC Report No. 63 submitted to the LegCo today.
The objective of developing a new CAD headquarters is to bring all operational divisions of the CAD under one roof and to house the new air traffic control system. The project aims to enhance the Department's overall operational efficiency and capability in handling air traffic management, so as to cope with the continued growth of air traffic volume and further strengthen Hong Kong's status as an international and regional aviation hub.
Although the new headquarters project largely meets the needs of CAD and it was completed within the contract period and within budget, there were indeed areas not properly handled by CAD during implementation of the project. We are particularly concerned about the deviations from the Government's internal procedures and requirements during the implementation of the project as pointed out in the Audit Report. As such, the Transport and Housing Bureau (THB) is currently examining the report submitted by the Director-General of Civil Aviation. If any misconduct is found, the Government will follow up the case in accordance with the established procedures, including taking appropriate administrative or disciplinary action. As for PAC's wish to know the contents of the report and the follow-up actions to be taken by THB, as mentioned in the speech of the Chairman of PAC, the Government will actively respond to such request.
To ensure proper use of public fund, the Government has established mechanisms to govern implementation of capital works projects including the requirement to seek relevant authorities' approval for the schedule of accommodation and procurement of furniture and equipment items. The said mechanisms are detailed in the government internal guidelines and circulars for the compliance by and reference of all government departments.
I would like to stress that the Government will continue to strive to submit accurate information to the LegCo to facilitate Members' consideration of government funding proposals. The Government has promulgated internal circular setting out issues which government departments need to pay attention to when preparing relevant submissions to the panels, Public Works Subcommittee and Finance Committee of LegCo. The first and foremost principle is that full and accurate information should be provided to the LegCo. With regard to the recommendations of the Audit and PAC, THB has promulgated a circular to departments under its purview, requesting them to regularly remind subject officers of the need to provide up-to-date information when preparing LegCo submissions. CAD has also updated the departmental handbook and informed all relevant staff of the need to submit full information to the LegCo.
Thank you, President.
Ends/Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Issued at HKT 12:15
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