Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ10:Non-emergency ambulance transfer service
Following is a question by the Hon Michael Mak Kwok-fung and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (November 13):
Question:
It has been reported that the 300 or so Hospital Authority ("HA") staff who provide non-emergency ambulance transfer service ("NEATS") work overtime for 20 000 hours a year. To compensate them for their overtime work, HA pays out $2 million a year rather than grants time-off to them. In the connection, will the Government inform this Council of:
(a) the operational information of NEATS of each public hospital, including the size of its fleet, the respective numbers and terms of employment of its full-time and part-time ambulance staff, as well as its management staff;
(b) the existing remuneration levels of the full-time and part-time ambulance staff;
(c) the maximum number of patients which an ambulance can carry per trip;
(d) the reasons for the ambulance staff having to work 20 000 hours overtime a year; and
(e) the demand for NEATS over the past three years; and the monthly average number of patient trips made by such service last year?
Reply:
(a) The Non-Emergency Ambulance Transfer Service (NEATS) of the Hospital Authority (HA) mainly provides transfer service to those geriatric day hospital patients, specialist outpatient clinic patients, patients requiring transfers between public hospitals and patients discharged from public hospitals, who require special assistance and support during the transfers. The NEATS is operated on cluster basis. The number of NEATS vehicles and the staff mix in each of the seven clusters are shown in Annex.
In general, the full-time staff of NEATS are employed by HA as permanent staff while the part-time staff are hired either on monthly or hourly rate basis. Full-time permanent staff of HA are entitled to basic salary, monthly cash allowance, and other fringe benefits (such as provident fund, annual leave, free medical outpatient and hospitalisation benefits and home loan interest subsidy) while part-time staff are entitled to basic salary and other statutory benefits, including provident fund.
(b) The monthly basic salaries of Senior Foreman, Patient Transfer Assistant and Patient Transfer Attendant are $17,220 - $20,150, $11,115 - $13,530 and $9,200 - $11,230 respectively. Part-time Technical Services Assistants (TSA) and General Services Assistants (GSA) are either paid on a monthly or hourly basis. The salary range of part-time TSA is $10,000 - $15,000 per month or $52 - $76 per hour, while that of part-time GSA is $6,000 - $10,000 per month or $32 - $52 per hour.
(c) Most of the NEATS vehicles are 12-seater vehicles. As two to three NEATS staff have to be stationed on a vehicle, on average each vehicle can transfer for each trip five to eight patients together with their accompanying family members. In this connection, there are a number of factors which limit the ability of NEATS vehicles to operate at full capacity for each trip. Given the mismatch between patients' demand for NEATS and the availability of NEATS vehicles to meet such demand, there is a need to strike a balance between operating at full capacity as against prolonged waiting time for the service by patients and/or excessively long travelling time for patients using the service. Also the service has to be so operated to ensure that patients can make the medical appointment on a timely basis.
(d) HA has been adopting flexible and cost-effective measures to meet the operational needs of NEATS, including employing part-time staff, adopting flexible shift arrangements for duty staff and improving operational flow. In general, the deployment of staff to work overtime is operationally more flexible than to employ additional part-time staff to cope with the fluctuating service demand. HA management will, as far as possible, provide the staff concerned with compensation leave for their overtime work. Overtime allowance will only be granted when compensation leave cannot be arranged within a reasonable period of time because of operational reasons.
During October 2001 to September 2002, NEATS staff worked a total of about 20 000 hours overtime, amounting to about 3 per cent of their total work hours in the 12-month period. About 50 per cent of the overtime hours were compensated by overtime allowance and the total overtime allowance paid was about $900,000. The main reasons for the NEATS staff to work overtime include:
i) unexpected increase in the number of patients discharged from hospitals or requiring transfer between hospitals who require NEATS;
ii) traffic congestion and other unexpected traffic conditions;
iii) unanticipated leave or sick leave of duty staff;
iv) unexpected delay in patients' return trips from specialist outpatient clinics and day hospitals; and
v) long distance transfers, such as transfers to and from Lantau Island, the airport, or border restricted areas.
(e) Over the years, the number of NEATS patients transferred per year has doubled since the transfer of the NEATS from the Fire Services Department to HA in 1994. The number of patients transferred by NEATS in the past three years is shown below:
Financial Year | Number of patients transferred |
1999/2000 | 433 964 |
2000/2001 | 440 792 |
2001/2002 | 456 004 |
In 2001/2002, the average number of NEATS patient trips per month was about 38 000.
End/Wednesday, November 13, 2002
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