Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ13: Employment of part-time staff by Hospital Authority
Following is a question by the Professor Hon Joseph Lee and a
written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in
the Legislative Council today (December 11):
Question:
Regarding the employment of part-time nurses by the Hospital
Authority (HA), will the Government inform this Council if it knows:
(a) the modes under which part-time nurses are currently employed by
HA, and the employment terms under each mode; the criteria based on
which HA determines the number of part-time nurses to be employed and
their employment terms;
(b) in respect of each employment mode, the number of part-time nurses
employed by HA with a breakdown by rank, and the average, longest and
shortest periods of employment of the part-time nurses of each rank;
(c) given that the Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57) provides that an
employee shall be entitled to certain employee rights and benefits only
if he or she is employed under a continuous contract (i.e. he or she has
been employed by the same employer for four weeks or more, with at least
18 hours worked in each week), whether HA has, for the purpose of
evading its obligations to provide part-time nurses with employee rights
and benefits so as to save resources, deliberately made administrative
arrangements to make their working hours not meeting the conditions for
a continuous contract;
(d) the number of part-time nurses currently employed by HA not under a
continuous contract, and the reasons for that; and
(e) whether HA has considered making more flexible work arrangements
for part-time nurses and improving their employment terms, so as to
retain part-time nurses and attract more nurses to join their ranks; if
it has, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
The Hospital Authority (HA) has been employing part-time staff,
including part-time nurses, to relieve the work pressure of frontline
staff. At present, individual clusters recruit part-time staff on
established employment terms in accordance with the HA's prevailing
human resource policies and in the light of their operational needs.
My reply to the various parts of the question is as follows:
(a) The HA recruits three types of part-time nurses, namely permanent
part-time nurses, contract part-time nurses and temporary part-time
nurses.
In general, the employment terms for permanent part-time and
contract part-time nurses, such as basic salary, allowance, annual leave
and sick leave, are pro-rated according to the percentage of work hours
per week. Other benefits include public and statutory holidays,
maternity leave, paternity leave, medical benefits, and death and
disability benefits, etc.
The basic salary for temporary part-time nurses is also determined
by the actual number of hours worked and is paid on a monthly
basis. They are also entitled to medical benefits. Other benefits,
such as annual leave, public and statutory holidays, sick leave and
maternity leave, are provided in accordance with the Employment
Ordinance.
The HA will determine the number and type of part-time nurses to be
employed having regard to operational needs, manpower requirement and
financial situation.
(b) The number and rank of various types of part-time nurses in the HA,
as well as their average, longest and shortest period of employment as
at September 30, 2013 are set out in Annex.
(c) When recruiting part-time nurses, the HA usually determines the
number and the employment type having regard to operational needs and
manpower requirement. The HA has not put in place any administrative
arrangements to make the working hours of part-time nurses lower than
the number specified for a continuous contract.
(d) Currently, there are 178 part-time nurses (excluding temporary
part-time nursing students) of the HA not employed under a continuous
contract. Renewal of their contracts mainly depends on factors such as
staffing arrangement with regard to operational needs and wishes of the
nurses themselves.
(e) When determining the remuneration and terms of employment for staff
of all grades, including full-time and part-time nursing staff, the HA
will consider such factors as job requirements, operational needs and
market conditions. Apart from the terms of employment, the HA will take
into consideration other factors such as working environment and job
satisfaction so as to attract and retain manpower.
The HA endeavours to improve the working environment of frontline
staff (including part-time nurses) so as to ease their work pressure and
retain manpower. In addition to the recruitment of part-time nurses,
the HA has adopted various measures to attract and retain nursing
staff. These measures, which include recruiting additional full-time
nurses, providing 3 000 additional electrically-operated beds to
simplify the work processes of ward staff, and improving ward
environment and streamlining workflow to reduce the substantial workload
of frontline nurses, will help improve the working environment of
full-time and part-time frontline nurses so as to attract and retain
manpower.
Ends/Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Issued at HKT 17:17
NNNN