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LCQ8: Healthcare manpower and measures for coping with influenza surges
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     Following is a question by Dr the Hon Pierre Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today (February 15):

Question:
 
     Regarding the arrangements for healthcare manpower, services and meetings made by the Hospital Authority (HA) to tackle influenza surges, will the Government inform this Council:

(1) whether it knows the respective total numbers of (i) additional beds, (ii) additional doctors, (iii) additional nurses, and (iv) additional allied health professionals, for each specialty/department in public hospitals in each of the past five years (set out such information in the table below);
 
Specialty/Department 2012 ...... 2016
(i) (ii) (iii) (iv)   (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
Accident and Emergency (A&E)                  
Internal Medicine                  
Paediatrics                  
Laboratories                  
......                  
Total:                  
 
(2) if it knows whether HA accorded, in the past five years, priorities in allocating additional beds and healthcare staff to those specialties/departments which were most affected by influenza surges (including the A&E, Internal Medicine and Paediatrics departments as well as Laboratories);

(3) whether it knows, regarding the various types of meetings held in the HA headquarters and various public hospitals in each of the past two years, the (i) total number of meetings, (ii) total number of meeting hours involved and (iii) total attendance of healthcare staff at such meetings; among such meetings, the (iv) total number of meetings which were dedicated to discussions on matters relating to tackling influenza surges, (v) total number of meeting hours involved, and (vi) total attendance of healthcare staff at such meetings (set out such information in a table); and

(4) as the Steering Committee on Review of Hospital Authority put forward in its report published in July 2015 that "HA should coordinate with relevant specialties to address the serious access block problem in A&E Departments in concerned hospitals", whether it knows the progress made by HA in implementing the recommendation?

Reply:

President,

     My reply to the question raised by Dr the Hon Pierre Chan relating to the healthcare manpower and measures for coping with influenza surges is as follows:

(1) The numbers of hospital beds and healthcare personnel in the Hospital Authority (HA) in the past five years are set out in Annex 1 and Annex 2 respectively.

(2) The HA develops annual plans for the number of additional beds and healthcare personnel to be provided based on service demand, estimated service provision and availability of resources.  In the past five years, the additional beds and personnel provided were mostly allocated to those departments responsible for tackling winter surges.

     A total of 833 additional beds were provided by the HA from 2012 to 2016, of which 542 (65 per cent) were provided for the specialty of medicine and 156 (19 per cent) for that of orthopaedics and traumatology.  On manpower front, during the same period, the number of doctors increased by 499, of which 239 (48 per cent) were deployed to the specialties of accident and emergency (A&E), medicine, paediatrics and pathology, while the number of nurses increased by 3 686, of which 1 811 (49 per cent) were deployed to the specialties of A&E, medicine and paediatrics.

(3) The number of internal meetings related to the specialties of medicine, orthopaedics and traumatology, paediatrics and A&E held at the HA Head Office during the winter surge from January to March and the average attendance of healthcare personnel in each of the meetings in the past five years are set out at Annex 3.  The HA does not maintain statistics on the total number of hours of these internal meetings.

     In addition, the Task Force on Winter Surge under the HA will generally hold meetings before the winter surge to discuss preparatory work.  When there is a surge in service demand, the Task Force will convene emergency meetings to discuss response measures having regard to the actual situation and needs.

     The HA has also advised the specialties of medicine, paediatrics, orthopaedics and traumatology and A&E to avoid convening major internal meetings during annual winter surge period from January to March as far as possible, especially after long holidays.

(4) To better address the access block problem in A&E departments, the HA has formulated specific key performance indicators, including preparing monitoring reports on access block to reflect the frequency and severity of such problem in individual hospitals.  In addition, the HA has enhanced the dissemination of information at different levels for hospital management and relevant healthcare personnel, so as to keep hospitals abreast of the latest situation in a more effective way and enable them to make prompt response.  For example, hospital management will be informed of the latest access block data through emails every day, and preliminary data on access block will be disseminated via emails every week during winter surge to facilitate formulation of response measures by hospitals.  As for information system, frontline staff can check the utilisation of beds in their respective hospitals and other related hospitals through the hospital bed management system in order to arrange bed deployment among hospitals.

     The HA Head Office also provides policy and resource support for all clusters, including formulating the A&E Support Session Programme, relaxing the application criteria for the Special Honorarium Scheme and the Continuous Night Shift Scheme, and hiring undergraduate nursing students and part-time staff.  Meanwhile, to meet service demand, all clusters also strive to provide additional beds and ensure flexible use of their existing facilities by, for example, transferring patients with milder conditions to convalescent hospitals to improve patient flow.  Besides, new mode of service delivery (e.g. enhancing geriatric team support for A&E departments) is adopted to facilitate timely referral of patients to the most appropriate caring settings.
 
Ends/Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Issued at HKT 17:45
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