Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ14: Subsidised long term care services for the elderly
Following is a question by the Dr Hon Law Chi-kwong and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (April 21):
Question:
The Social Welfare Department standardised the handling of applications by the elderly for subsidised long term care (LTC) services in November last year. Upon registration and completion of assessment on their care needs, applicants will be registered on the central waiting list (CWL) to wait for appropriate services. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the following since the establishment of the CWL,
(i) the respective numbers of newly registered cases the relevant authorities have received regarding application for residential and community care services;
(ii) the number of cases on which assessment has been completed;
(iii) the number of the elderly who have been assessed to be eligible for residential care services and, among them, of the number of those who are willing to continue to reside in the community and accept a switch to community care services;
(iv) the number of cases in which the applicants have rejected the services offered by the authority concerned and the reasons for rejection, with a breakdown by type of services;
(v) the respective average waiting times for the elderly who have been offered residential and community care services;
(vi) the number of cases in which applicants are assessed to be ineligible for the services applied and the reasons for ineligibility;
(b) whether there have been any LTC service places not being utilised; if so, of the details;
(c) given that prior to the implementation of the CWL, applicants for community care services could approach individual service units directly to enquire about the queuing situation, of the channels available to them to make such enquiries at present; and
(d) whether the applicants can choose the organisations to provide community care services to them?
Reply:
Madam President,
The Social Welfare Department (SWD) introduced the Central Waiting List (CWL) for subsidised long-term care (LTC) services for the elders on 28 November 2003. Elders who wish to apply for any of the LTC services after that date have to be assessed of their LTC needs by completing the Standardised Care Need Assessment first. Those assessed to have LTC needs may then apply and waitlist for eligible LTC services.
On the specific questions raised by Dr Hon Law Chi-kwong, the answers are as below:
(a) (i) & (ii) Between 28 November 2003 and 31 March 2004, 3 481 elders have newly registered with SWD for Standardised Care Need Assessment. By April 13 2004, SWD has completed the assessments on 2,874 elders. 2,533 were assessed to have LTC needs, and might apply for those LTC services for which they were assessed to be eligible. As at March 31, 2004, 1,672 applied and were placed onto the CWL.
(iii) Of the 2,533 elders who were assessed to have LTC needs, 2,422 elders were considered to be eligible for residential care services. The remaining 111 were assessed to be eligible for community care services only.
As at April 13, 2004, 339 of the 2,422 elders who were considered to be eligible for residential care services have waitlisted for or received community care services, in addition to waitlisting for residential care services. Another 162 elders have waitlisted for or received community care services only.
(iv) As at March 31, 2004, 1,672 of the 2,533 elders who were assessed to have LTC needs have already applied for one or more of the LTC services for which they were assessed to be eligible. As for the remaining 861 elders, some are still considering whether or not to apply for any of the LTC services. SWD does not have ready information showing how many of the 861 elders have already decided not to apply for the services. Also, as SWD will not know the reasons why they do not apply, it is not possible to tell how many do not apply because they reject the services recommended by SWD on the basis of the outcomes of the Standardised Care Need Assessment.
(v) The average waiting time for applicants admitted to residential care services and community care services for the period from December 2003 to March 2004 is as below:
Types of LTC services Average waiting time (number of months)
Nursing homes 38.9
Care and attention homes 21.4
Day care centres/units for the elderly 2.6
Enhanced Home and Community Care Services/ 1.4
Integrated Home Care Services (Frail cases)
(vi) Of the 2,874 elders whom SWD has completed assessment, 341 were assessed to be not having reached an impairment level of moderate or above, and were not eligible for LTC services. The social workers of these elders will attend to their other welfare needs and refer them to appropriate services where necessary.
(b) As at March 31, 2004, there are on average around 0.7 per cent vacancies in care and attention homes and about one per cent in nursing homes. The figures cover subsidised places in subvented homes, the Enhanced Bought Place Scheme and contract homes. Almost all of them are casual vacancies and are usually filled up shortly afterwards.
About 15 per cent of the places in the day care centres/units for the elderly, and about 23 per cent of the places in the Enhanced Home and Community Care Services and Integrated Care Services (Frail cases) were not yet being fully utilised as at March 31, 2004.
(c) Applicants may lodge enquiries on their applications for community care services to SWD's five Standardised Care Need Assessment Management Offices (Elderly Services) through SWD/Non-Government Organisations' social workers responsible for their cases.
(d) Community care services are district/vicinity based. That is, applicants will be assigned service providers which are serving the districts/vicinities where they reside. To ensure optimal use of services, applicants cannot choose the service providers under normal circumstances.
Ends/Wednesday, April 21, 2004
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