Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ8: Hospital Authority's specialist out-patient services
Following is a question by the Hon Leung Ka-lau and a written reply
by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative
Council today (December 18):
Question:
Regarding the waiting time for specialist out-patient (SOP)
services provided by public hospitals under the Hospital Authority
between 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, whether the Government knows the
following information (set out in table form):
(a) the respective waiting time of 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th
percentile for new case bookings for the relevant SOP services in
various hospital clusters, broken down by specialty;
(b) the respective waiting time of 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th
percentile for new case bookings for the relevant SOP services in
various public hospitals, broken down by specialty;
(c) the respective numbers of new cases handled by each doctor of the
relevant SOP services per month on average in various public hospitals,
broken down by specialty;
(d) the respective numbers of old cases handled by each doctor of the
relevant SOP services per month on average in various public hospitals,
broken down by specialty; and
(e) the respective waiting time of 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th
percentile for new case bookings for patients to receive medical
examinations (i.e. computer tomography scan, ultrasound scan,
mammography and magnetic resonance imaging) in various public hospitals,
broken down by type of such medical examinations?
Reply:
President,
(a) and (b) The Hospital Authority (HA) has implemented a triage system
for all newly referred specialist out-patient (SOP) cases to ensure that
patients with urgent conditions requiring early intervention are treated
with priority. Under the current triage system, new referral cases are
usually first screened by a nurse and then by a specialist doctor of the
relevant specialty for classification into priority 1 (urgent), priority
2 (semi-urgent) and routine categories. HA's target is to maintain the
median waiting time for cases under priority 1 and priority 2 within two
weeks and eight weeks respectively. HA has all along been able to meet
the target. Moreover, clinics for the same specialty within the same
cluster will co-ordinate their provision of services, the waiting time
for SOP services is thus reported on a cluster basis. In general, the
waiting time is statistically listed out in lower quartile (25th
percentile), median (50th percentile), upper quartile (75th percentile)
and the longest waiting time (90th percentile) to represent the overall
distribution.
The distribution of the relevant statistics of waiting time of SOP
new cases triaged as priority 1, priority 2 and routine cases in each
cluster from 2008-09 to 2012-13 is given in Annex 1.
(c) and (d) Each doctor in a cluster is responsible for a wide range of
services, including in-patient, surgery, out-patient, ambulatory and
outreach services. It serves little purpose to compare the number of
cases handled each month by SOP doctors among different
clusters. Figures also vary across different specialties and clusters
as the modes of service delivery, ratio of new cases to follow-up
attendances and complexity of cases are all different.
Annex 2 sets out the number of doctors working in major specialties
under each cluster from 2008-09 to 2012-13. Annex 3 and Annex 4 set out
the numbers of new cases and follow-up attendances for major SOP
services of each cluster from 2008-09 to 2012-13 respectively.
(e) HA co-ordinates and provides computed tomography, ultrasound
scanning, mammography screening and magnetic resonance imaging services
on a cluster basis for in-patients as well are patients receiving
surgical, out-patient and ambulatory services. The lower quartile (25th
percentile), median (50th percentile), upper quartile (75th percentile)
and the longest (90th percentile) waiting time of patients who have
received such services (including new cases and follow-up attendances)
in each cluster from 2010-11 to 2012-13 (from July 1 to June 30 of the
following year) (note: HA has not maintained figures for 2008-09 and
2009-10) are shown in Annex 5.
Ends/Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Issued at HKT 18:06
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