Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ4: Telephone booking service in general outpatient clinics
Following is a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a reply by the Secretary
for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today
(January 10):
Question:
The Hospital Authority (HA) is progressively extending the Telephone Booking
Service implemented for patients with episodic illnesses (i.e. patients who do
not require regular follow-up consultations) to all its general outpatient
clinics. I have received a number of complaints from the elderly that, owing to
a limited quota on the outpatient consultation service and the complex telephone
booking procedure, they find it difficult to book consultation appointments, and
that different clinics using different booking telephone numbers also causes
inconvenience to them. In this connection, will the Government inform this
Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of complaints received by HA so far about the Telephone Booking
Service;
(b) if HA will, from the perspective of facilitating patients, consider the
alternative of assigning a single telephone number for the Telephone Booking
Service, and of the resource and technical difficulties for HA to provide at the
same time different means for booking consultation appointments, including
queuing up in person, through the Internet or interactive telephone system; and
(c) if HA will consider increasing the quota for outpatient consultation
service, thereby alleviating patients' anxiety arising from the fear of failure
to secure an consultation appointment; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President:
The main purpose of the telephone booking service introduced by the Hospital
Authority (HA) in its general out-patient clinics (GOPCs) is to address the
public demands for improving the crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs, and making
optimal use of the resources in public general out-patient service. In the past,
patients often had to line up outside the GOPCs in person in the early morning
hours for a consultation slot, and quite a number of members of the public and
this Council had expressed concern over such a situation. In July 2005, this
Council passed a motion urging the Administration to improve the out-patient
service and its appointment arrangements.
In light of the above, HA has implemented the telephone booking service in its
GOPCs on Hong Kong Island since November 2005 on a trial basis. As the effect of
the telephone booking service has been generally favourable, HA has
progressively extended the service to its GOPCs in Kowloon and the New
Territories since October 2006 and the service has been in operation for some
three months. The result achieved is noticeable. The crowded waiting condition
at GOPCs has significantly improved and patients no longer need to line up
outside GOPCs early in the morning. It is now easier for them to select their
preferred consultation session and clinic, making optimal use of the resources
for public general out-patient service.
The telephone booking service is still in its early days of territory-wide
operation. It takes time for all the parties involved to adapt to this new
service, and the telephone booking system itself also has room for improvements.
HA has been embarking upon a series of improvement measures including: further
stepping up publicity, education and support to patients, especially the
elderly, on the use of the telephone booking service; streamlining the workflow
of making appointments through the telephone booking system to make it easier to
use; and allowing flexibility for those patients who have genuine difficulty in
using the telephone booking service and offering them assistance as far as
possible. The Administration, in conjunction with HA, will continue to closely
monitor the operation of the telephone booking service, and regularly review and
enhance the system where appropriate.
Our reply to the different parts of the question is as follows:
(a) HA has so far received a total of 46 complaints regarding the telephone
booking service since its introduction last year.
(b) The computer system of the telephone booking service is designed to be as
user-friendly as possible to make it easier for patients to use. We note that
most patients are used to seeking consultation at specific clinics. Therefore,
it is more convenient for them to make booking through a separate telephone
number for each clinic and the steps involved for using the booking system would
be simpler. Meanwhile, the computer system of the telephone booking service has
an automatic search function which, when a particular clinic has exhausted all
its consultation slots, will connect automatically to nearby clinics to search
for remaining time slots available for patients' selection. HA will strengthen
its publicity efforts about the telephone numbers for booking and enquiries of
the GOPCs in each district.
Besides, the implementation of telephone booking service is mainly to improve
the crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs. Long waiting queues outside clinics
will re-appear if we re-open queuing as a means of booking in addition to
telephone booking. Furthermore, though in its early days of implementation, the
telephone booking service has already achieved quite some improvements to the
crowded queuing conditions in GOPCs. For the time being, HA has to focus its
resources on promoting and improving the telephone booking service. It takes
time for members of the public to adapt to the telephone booking service, and
telephone is the most accessible communication device for majority of the target
users of public out-patient services. Therefore, HA will not consider for the
time-being other modes of booking service, including arranging for appointments
via the Internet or allowing queuing up at clinics again.
(c) At present, public out-patient service is primarily targeted at the
underprivileged groups, including the chronically ill, frail and vulnerable
elders, and low income families. We are conducting preliminary planning to
establish another GOPC in Tin Shui Wai. However, generally speaking increasing
consultation quota is not necessarily the most effective way to improve existing
service. In the long run, we will continue to explore ways of enhancing the
overall primary health care services. These include introducing family doctor
based services, and encouraging private doctors to enhance the quality of their
professional services, improve the transparency of the fees they charge, offer
more convenient consultation sessions to the public, and strengthen their
efforts on disease prevention. The public general out-patient service will
continue to target the underprivileged groups, promote family doctor based
services as the model of primary health care services, and provide training
opportunities to primary healthcare and family health practitioners.
Ends/Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:43
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