The Department of Health (DH) today (September 30) announced that the department's reorganisation will take effect on October 1 to better address society's public health challenges.
 
     Under the reorganisation, a new Regulatory Affairs function, headed by the Controller, Regulatory Affairs is established. The Controller, Regulatory Affairs is responsible for overseeing seven regulatory services and steering the enforcement of public health legislation and formulation of regulatory strategies capable of responding effectively to new challenges arising from the evolving landscape of medical and public health services.
 
     A spokesman for the DH said, "With the increased awareness on public health in the community, there is growing demand for DH services such as various vaccination programmes, health promotion, strategic action plans for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, and implementation of various public health-related subsidy schemes, such as the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme. At the same time, the statutory and regulatory functions of the DH have grown substantially.
 
     "Following the approval of the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in May for the staffing proposal under the DH reorganisation plan, we are now taking on board the organisation structural changes with a view to taking forward the new and expanded initiatives."
 
     The opportunity is taken to announce the integration of the Primary Care Office (PCO) of the DH into the Primary Healthcare Office (PHO) of the Food and Health Bureau (FHB), also from October 1. The integration allows better use of the expertise and resources in the PCO and the PHO, and will enable the FHB to better drive the continuous development of the primary healthcare system in Hong Kong. The PHO in the FHB will take over the functions of promulgating the reference frameworks for primary care settings and maintaining the Primary Care Directory.
 
     The above organisational changes will be reflected in the websites of both the DH and the FHB accordingly.

Ends/Monday, September 30, 2019
Issued at HKT 17:31

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