Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ12: Filling vacancies of doctors
Following is a question by the Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today
(April 23):
Question:
It is learnt that a vacancy arising from the retirement of a Consultant of Tuen
Mun Hospital was left vacant for a long time before being filled by a promoted
doctor, resulting in the medical services of the hospital being adversely
affected in the period concerned. In this connection, will the Government inform
this Council whether it knows:
(a) in each of the past three years, the respective year-end numbers of
incumbent Consultants, Associate Consultants and Senior Medical Officers ("SMOs")
in public hospitals, as well as the respective numbers of those who left and
those who were appointed to such posts;
(b) the respective average periods for which vacancies of Consultants, Associate
Consultants and SMOs in public hospitals in the past three years were left
vacant before being filled;
(c) the respective five longest periods for which vacancies were left vacant
among those vacancies of Consultants, Associate Consultants and SMOs in
hospitals under the New Territories West Cluster in the past three years, and
the reasons for such vacancies being left vacant for a prolonged period; and
(d) if the Hospital Authority has considered taking measures to expedite the
filling of vacancies of doctors; if it has not, of the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The numbers of Consultants, Associate Consultants and Senior Medical
Officers (SMOs) who are in service, leaving service and newly appointed in all
hospital clusters under the Hospital Authority (HA) in each of the past three
years are shown in Annex.
According to the data in recent years, it takes seven years on average for a
Resident to obtain a specialist qualification and about another four years for
promotion to SMO or Associate Consultant after acquiring the specialist
qualification. For an SMO or Associate Consultant to be promoted to Consultant,
it needs an average of about six years. The number of doctors appointed in
various hospital clusters varies depending on the structure of the respective
specialty and the service demand in the respective cluster.
(b) HA does not have any statistics on the average lead time between a doctor
leaving service and the vacancy being formally filled.
But in general, when a doctor leaves service, the cluster management will first
conduct a review to see if there is a need to fill the vacancy having regard to
the service demand and manpower deployment. In parallel, acting appointment by a
suitable doctor will be arranged to ensure that the services will not be
affected. If the vacancy has to be filled, the hospital concerned will issue a
vacancy circular within two weeks to proceed with the recruitment exercise. An
assessment panel will then be set up within one and a half months thereafter for
conducting an interview with the applicants. If no suitable applicant is found
after the first round of interview, another round of recruitment and interview
will normally be conducted within one to three months depending on the
prevailing manpower supply. After a suitable applicant is selected, arrangement
will be made for him/her to be transferred out from his/her original post and to
take up the new position within two to three months. As such, the time for an
incoming doctor to formally take up the vacant position varies from case to
case, depending on the time required for the recruitment and selection exercise,
the availability of a suitable candidate and the time when the appointed staff
member can formally report for duty.
(c) In the past three years (i.e. from 2005 to 2007), the average lead time
between the departure of outgoing Consultants, Associate Consultants and SMOs in
the New Territories West Cluster and the arrival of incoming officers to
formally fill the vacancies was two and a half months. The average lead time in
the five most prolonged cases of unfilled vacancies ranged between four and nine
months. The reasons include the absence of professionally qualified candidates.
Furthermore, the appointment of Consultants involves strict selection
procedures. The applicants are subject to assessment by a selection board
comprising a number of professionals and this usually involves a longer
selection period. Since departments would make corresponding manpower deployment
and service arrangement upon the departure or retirement of a staff member,
normally the services would not be affected.
(d) Between 2005-06 and 2007-08, the overall number of doctors (full-time
equivalents) in all hospital clusters saw an increase of 39.3, 47 and 107.8 each
year respectively. This shows that the overall number of doctors in HA keeps on
increasing.
Furthermore, HA has put in place various measures for retaining its doctors.
These include: (i) introduction of more flexible employment terms and
remuneration package for part-time employment since August 2007 to attract more
part-time doctors; (ii) implementation of salary adjustment for Residents from
Point 27 - 38 to Point 30 - 44B of the HA General Pay Scale (HGPS) since October
2007; awarding additional salary increments to doctors who have successfully
passed a specialist examination; and adjustment of starting salary for Associate
Consultants from Point 40 to 45 of the HGPS; (iii) allowing qualified contract
doctors to apply for transfer to full-time employment on permanent terms; (iv)
provision of better training and development opportunities to facilitate the
professional development of doctors; and (v) carrying out pilot programmes on
doctor work reform to improve the working environment of doctors.
Ends/Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:01
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