************************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Legislative Council Secretariat:
The Legislative Council Secretariat (the Secretariat) today (December 15) released a Research Brief on "Challenges of population ageing".
The population of Hong Kong is ageing fast. Apart from increased number and proportion of older people in the total population, higher incidence rate of chronic diseases and physical deterioration among older people would also result in rising demand for long term care services by the frail elderly.
In Hong Kong, long term care comprises residential care services (RCS) and community care services (CCS). Amid increasing demand for RCS, the number of subsidised RCS places remained virtually unchanged over the last decade. This has resulted in the long waiting list and waiting time for subsidised RCS places. Many elderly applicants on the waiting list passed away before being offered a place. The number reached 5 568 in 2014, an all-time high over the last decade.
Meanwhile, many private residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) not participating in the Government's bought-place scheme fare less favourably in spacing and staff provision as they are only required to comply with the statutory minimum standards under the Residential Care Homes (Elderly Persons) Ordinance, which have not been revised in the past 19 years.
To improve the services quality of RCS, some of the overseas places have made accreditation a compulsory requirement for licensing of RCHEs. In Hong Kong, only 61 out of a total of 738 RCHEs have been accredited in one or more independent services quality accreditation schemes on a voluntary basis.
Apart from upgrading the services quality of private RCHEs, the Government has adopted measures to increase the number of subsidised RCS places to keep pace with rising demand. Yet, past development projects indicate that it took at least five years for opening a new contract RCHE. Manpower shortage in the elderly care industry and high turnover rate of experienced frontline workers add to the concerns over the feasibility of increasing the number of subsidised RCHE places in the future.
Enhancement of CCS could help delay or even reduce institutionalisation of the elderly. Over the last decade, the Government almost doubled the recurrent expenditure on various subsidised CCS. However, there is still an imbalance between CCS and RCS in terms of the number of places provided and the amount of government funding received. The small provision of CCS places does not tally with the Government's long-stated policy of "ageing in place as the core, institutional care as back-up".
Meanwhile, there are many elderly people who are still healthy and living in the community. While the Government has taken various measures to encourage active ageing, there is no guiding policy for active ageing in Hong Kong. The provision of support services for the able-bodied elderly follows more of an incremental approach with the delivery of the services straddling across various bureaux/departments over the years. Most recently, Singapore's Ministerial Committee on Ageing announced a massive and holistic plan – which contains about 60 initiatives covering 12 areas, such as health and wellness, learning, volunteerism, retirement adequacy, protection for vulnerable seniors, and research - to promote an active ageing policy enabling the elderly to stay healthy, active and independent.
This is the first issue of the Research Brief for 2015-2016 prepared by the Secretariat's Research Office of the Information Services Division with a view to enhancing information support for Members. It is a concise summary aiming at explaining a subject matter which may be of interest to Members and the general public.
The Research Brief is now available on the Legislative Council Website at www.legco.gov.hk/research-publications/english/1516rb01-challenges-of-population-ageing-20151215-e.pdf.
Ends/Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Issued at HKT 18:26
NNNN
