Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ14: Complaints received by public hospitals
Following is a question by the Hon Hui Chi-fung and a written reply by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today
(March 1):
Question:
Will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(1) the number of complaints received from patients or their families by each
public hospital in the past five years, with a breakdown by nature of complaint;
(2) the number of complaints received from staff members by each public hospital
in the past five years, with a breakdown by nature of complaint;
(3) among the complaints mentioned in (1), the number of those involving medical
errors; among them, the respective numbers of cases in respect of which the
Hospital Authority (HA) (i) arranged mediation and (ii) made compensation,
apologies or other remedies to the patients concerned or their families after
mediation, as well as the total amount of compensation paid each year;
(4) among the complaints mentioned in (1), the number of cases with the disputes
concerned taken to court eventually and the amount of legal costs incurred by HA
each year; among them, the number of cases in respect of which HA was required
to pay compensation to the patients concerned or their families, and the total
amount of compensation paid by HA each year;
(5) among the complaints mentioned in (2), the number of cases in respect of
which HA arranged mediation; among them, the respective numbers of cases in
respect of which HA (i) paid compensation and (ii) arranged for the transfer of
the staff members concerned; the total amount of compensation paid by HA each
year; and
(6) among the complaints mentioned in (2), the number of cases with the disputes
concerned taken to court eventually and the amount of legal costs incurred by HA
each year; among them, the number of cases in respect of which HA was required
to pay compensation to the staff members concerned, and the total amount of
compensation paid by HA each year?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the various parts of the question raised by the Hon Hui Chi-fung on
complaints received by public hospitals is as follows:
(1), (3) and (4) In the past five years, the clusters of the Hospital Authority
(HA) handled a total of 12 589 complaints lodged by members of the public
(excluding HA staff). Annex 1 sets out the breakdown of complaints by year,
hospital cluster and category.
The HA does not maintain separate statistical breakdown of complaints about
medical incidents. Hence, no information on the compensation amounts and legal
costs involved in such cases can be provided. Annex 2 sets out the statistics on
the cases of claims reported under the medical incidents insurance scheme of the
HA over the past five years, the number of claims referred to mediation and the
amount of compensation. There were no cases of claims resolved by court ruling
in the past five years.
(2) A total of 953 staff complaints were received by public hospitals in the
past five years. A breakdown by HA cluster is set out at Annex 3.
For the classification of complaints by HA staff by nature, the number of
categories was revised from nine to 16 in 2012 and further increased to 17 in
2013. The number of complaints by staff members, broken down by nature of
complaint, received in the past five years (i.e. 2011 to 2015) is set out at
Annex 4.
(5) and (6) The HA does not maintain statistics on the number of mediation cases
relating to complaints by staff members and the amount of compensation involved.
Ends/Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Issued at HKT 12:32
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LCQ14 Annex 1
LCQ14 Annex 2
LCQ14 Annex 3
LCQ14 Annex 4