Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ19: Overseas visit and training for Hospital Authority staff
Following is a question by the Hon Andrew Cheng and a written reply by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today
(January 6):
Question:
According to recent media reports, the New Territories West Cluster (NTWC) to
which Castle Peak Hospital belongs has arranged overseas duty visits for a
number of senior healthcare staff of the hospital, for the purpose of
introducing the management mode of the Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan.
Regarding the arrangements made by the hospital clusters under the Hospital
Authority (HA) for healthcare staff to undertake study visits and receive
training abroad, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of staff who had been arranged by NTWC to go abroad for study
visits, training or participating in activities such as seminars, for the
purpose of introducing the aforesaid management mode, and the total number of
working hours lost as a result; the amount of expenditure incurred on the study
visits, the destinations involved, and the number and ranks of staff who
participated in the visits by destination; whether HA has a mechanism for
assessing the impact on the frontline work caused by a number of healthcare
staff being absent from their work positions to participate in such activities;
(b) in respect of each cluster, the expenditure incurred on staff training last
year and the percentage of the amount in the total expenditure, the number of
staff who participated in such training and, among them, the number of those who
participated in overseas study visits and training, as well as the expenditure
involved; and
(c) the respective expenditure incurred by HA last year on overseas study visits
and training for its senior executives, doctors at the ranks of Senior Medical
Officer or above, doctors at other ranks, nurses and allied health staff; the
average expenditure incurred in respect of each of these staff members; and
regarding the study visit or training activity which incurred the highest
expenditure, of its purpose, the amount of expenditure incurred as well as the
number of participants and their respective ranks?
Reply:
President,
The information provided by the Hospital Authority (HA) in response to the
question is set out below.
(a) Last year, the New Territories West Cluster (NTWC) organised seven overseas
visits to places such as Guangzhou, Singapore and Japan with a total expenditure
of $215,568 for the purpose of adopting advanced management concepts to
streamline its work procedures and enhance service efficiency and quality. There
are a total of 43 participants of the visits, including eight doctors, 22 nurses
and 13 staff members of other grades. The number of man-days involved was about
112. The expenditure per participant on average for these visits was about
$5,013. The NTWC has always put its services to patients at the top of its
priority and all training activities have been conducted on the condition that
the patient services will not be affected. Under the existing mechanism for
approving training activities, HA will assess whether the training activities
will have any impact on staff deployment in frontline departments. As most of
the participants in the above seven overseas visits were department heads and
ward managers responsible for supervision of frontline staff, the visits had no
direct impact on the provision of frontline services. Upon completion of the
visits, participating staff will apply the advanced management concepts in the
operation of their departments and wards to further improve the services to
patients.
(b) In 2008-09, the total expenditure incurred by the HA Head Office and various
hospital clusters on staff training and development, including local and
overseas training, was about $66 million, constituting about 0.2% of the total
funding allocated to HA in that year. There were a total of about 179,000
participants in various training in that year, among which 1,500 were staff of
different grades participating in overseas training. The total expenditure of
these overseas training was about $15 million.
(c) All professional and executive staff in HA have opportunity for training
appropriate to their rank, experience and job responsibility. In 2008-09, the
expenditure on overseas training for HA senior executives (including Cluster
Chief Executives, Hospital Chief Executives and Directors at HA Head Office) was
around $17,000 per person on average whereas the expenditure incurred in this
regard for staff from other grades was around $10,000 per person on average.
In 2008-09, the training activity with the highest expenditure was the study
visit organised for the "Ward Based Work Review" in February 2009. Seventeen
departmental heads and managers from the HA Head Office and the seven clusters
were arranged to receive training in "Quality Healthcare Management" in the
United Kingdom and to visit local hospitals to study how patients' satisfaction
and operational effectiveness could be enhanced in the daily delivery of
healthcare services. The total expenditure incurred for this training was
$602,750 with an expenditure of about $35,000 per participant on average.
All of the above staff training and development activities were held with the
aim to enhance the knowledge and skills of staff, improve their performance and
productivity to meet current and future operational needs.
Ends/Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:11
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