Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ8: Hospital Authority staff training programmes
Following is a question by the Dr Hon Leung Ka-lau and a written reply by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today
(April 20):
Question:
It has been reported that the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government
in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Liaison Office) has earlier
invited the Hospital Authority (HA) to recommend 30 young doctors to attend a
one-week national studies programme for Hong Kong doctors (Programme) to be held
in Beijing in April this year. The participants invited are those junior doctors
who have four to five years of service. The participants are granted paid study
leave by HA during their attendance at the Programme, with airfare to be
subsidised by HA and their expenses on meals, accommodation and transportation
in Beijing to be borne by the Liaison Office. Some doctors of public hospitals
have written to me expressing grave concern about the aforesaid arrangement. In
this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it knows the criteria based on which HA has approved paying the
airfare for its staff members attending the Programme with public money and
granting them paid study leave;
(2) as some doctors of public hospitals have pointed out that according to its
human resources procedures, HA generally would subsidise its healthcare staff
members to attend work-related exchanges or seminars only, whether it knows the
direct relevance between the contents of the Programme and the frontline
clinical duties of the junior doctors attending the Programme, as well as the
benefits towards their clinical work to be gained by participating in the
Programme;
(3) whether it knows the number of times since 1997 for which HA was invited by
the Liaison Office to send its staff members to attend similar programmes, and
the following information in respect of each programme: (i) purposes, (ii)
venue, (iii) target participants, (iv) contents, (v) the details of sponsorships
received, and (vi) the number of participants, broken down by their years of
service and grade;
(4) whether it knows the details of the sponsored training programmes organised
by HA jointly with local or overseas organisations in the past 10 years, and set
out in a table the following information in respect of each programme: (i) the
name of the programme, (ii) the year in which the programme was held, (iii) the
name of the co-organiser(s), (iv) the amount of sponsorships received, (v) the
number of participants, and (vi) the number of days of paid study leave granted
by HA to those staff members; and
(5) as it has been reported that recently, there has been a surge in the
utilisation of public hospital services and an acute shortage of healthcare
manpower (e.g. the waiting time for semi-urgent and non-urgent patients at the
accident and emergency departments is as long as 10-odd hours, and the inpatient
bed occupancy rates of the medical wards of some public hospitals have
persistently stood at 130%), whether it knows if HA has considered the manpower
situation of the departments concerned before making arrangements for its
doctors to attend the Programme; whether HA will, in the light of the shortage
of doctors and the substantial increase in workload, consider not to send
doctors to attend programmes unrelated to their clinical duties again in future?
Reply:
President,
My consolidated reply to the various parts of the question raised by the Dr Hon
Leung Ka-lau relating to the participation of Hospital Authority (HA) staff in
training programmes is as follows:
The HA attaches great importance to providing comprehensive training and
development opportunities for its staff of all grades and levels and hence
clinical and non-clinical-related training and exchange visits are arranged for
them from time to time. Such training covers a variety of areas, including
development of professional specialties, quality management, development and
planning of healthcare services around the world and general self-management.
Generally speaking, for healthcare professionals, the HA provides them with
training opportunities not only about clinical knowledge and skills, but also a
variety of training in different areas including leadership, management and
communication skills.
The HA has an established mechanism for providing training assistance, e.g.
training subsidy or study leave, to its staff on training and exchange visits.
When considering approval for training assistance, the HA considers factors
including the relationship between the training and career development of the
staff and if the training is for the benefit of services for patients.
Apart from using its own resources to support staff training, the HA also
accepts invitations and sponsorship from various organisations to enable its
staff to attend local or overseas training/academic exchanges, study programmes,
academic conferences/seminars, or field visits and workshops. The HA has
organised staff training programmes in collaboration with other organisations or
by accepting their sponsorship. For example, the HA's training partners in
recent years include the Ministry of Health of Singapore, Hospital for Sick
Children of Canada, Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, International
Society for Quality in Healthcare, International Hospital Federation, Health
Information and Management Systems Society in Singapore, overseas and local
universities, Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and various specialist groups. An
exhaustive list is not available because of the large number of training
programmes and the volume of related information.
Sponsorship may be offered in various ways and the level of sponsorship received
by staff will depend on the modes (local or overseas), duration and venues of
the training courses concerned. The sponsorship may take the form of air
passage, accommodation and course fees, subject to the HA's approval according
to its guidelines on "Acceptance of Advantages, Entertainment and Sponsorship".
General criteria for considering the acceptance of sponsorship include that
acceptance of sponsorship will not give rise to actual or perceived conflict of
interest and will not cause disrepute to the HA, whether the sponsorship is for
the benefit of services for patients and the amount of sponsorship is
reasonable.
The Course on National Affairs for Hong Kong Professionals (Course) is organised
by the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region and provided by the Chinese Academy of Governance.
The HA is an invited participant, not a co-organiser of the Course. Over the
years, the HA has accepted invitations to nominate its staff to attend the
Course, and the nominations are made taking into account the work situation of
its staff. In the past decade, almost 200 HA staff members attended the Course.
They comprise administrative and management staff, healthcare personnel of
various grades, including medical staff (Chief of Service, Consultant, Associate
Consultant and Resident), nursing staff (Senior Nursing Officer, Department
Operation Manager and Ward Manager) and allied health professionals of different
disciplines.
The Course, which lasts for one week, is held in Mainland cities, for example,
Shanghai or Beijing. Lectures are given by Mainland scholars and officials on
national systems and policies in different areas, e.g. healthcare reform. Visits
to healthcare institutions in the Mainland are also arranged. The organising
party is responsible for the meal/ accommodation, local transport and course
fee. Under the HA's existing human resources policy, before accepting any
sponsorship including training-related subsidies from other institutions, its
staff must report the case through the existing mechanism and obtain their
supervisors' approval.
The HA received an invitation to take part in the Course originally scheduled
for April 2016 which was later rescheduled to mid-May. As the target
participants for the Course are professionals in the healthcare sector, the HA
has invited its clusters to nominate doctors interested in the Course to attend
subject to their workload and availability. With nominations from the clusters,
a total of 27 HA staff members are nominated to attend the Course. Of these HA
staff, six are Residents and others include Chiefs of Service, Consultants,
Associate Consultants, nursing and allied health professionals, and executive.
Their participation in the Course is on a voluntary basis and is subject to
confirmation by their respective departments, Hospital Chief Executives and
Cluster Chief Executives that the work and service will not be so affected.
Ends/Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Issued at HKT 18:45
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