HONG KONG – The Health Bureau of Hong Kong has instructed the Hospital Authority (HA) to accord priority to taking forward reform work aimed at enhancing the HA’s governance and structure.

“Confronted with pressures on the healthcare system due to an ageing population, a growing prevalence of chronic diseases and persistent increases in medical costs, we must deepen reforms regarding systemic and structural issues in overall public hospital management,” Secretary for Health Professor Lo Chung-mau said on Friday.

He was speaking after examining an HA report on a review conducted earlier of systemic issues involved in hospital management.

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In light of a number of hospital incidents, the Health Bureau asked the HA in June to conduct a comprehensive review of the systemic issues and the need for reform with regard to the management of public hospitals. The HA later formed a review committee and submitted to the HA Board a report with recommendations for enhancements.

Prof Lo said his bureau agreed with the direction of the 31 recommended measures and corresponding action plan.

The aim of carrying out such reforms is to make sure that the public healthcare system can provide the public with healthcare services with quality, safety and effectiveness in a sustainable manner and meet today's community needs while ensuring valuable healthcare resources are put to good use, he said.

Pointing out that the review is comprehensive in scope and covers a wide range of the HA's issues – governance, appraisal, accountability and distribution of responsibilities, operations, risk management, procedural compliance and more, he said it also involves multiple levels ranging from the HA Head Office to hospital clusters, hospitals departments and staff.

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The health chief made it clear that the bureau has instructed the HA to implement various enhancement measures in a timely manner while monitoring the implementation progress and effectiveness on an on-going basis, and submitting progress reports to the bureau on a regular basis.

The review report also pointed to the need to examine whether the HA's existing governance and management structure can continue to meet the present-day needs and circumstances of the complex public hospital system.

In this connection, the HA will establish a Governance and Structure Reform Committee under the HA Board, with HA Board Chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling as its chairman, to steer the implementation of recommendations made in the review report regarding governance, accountability and distribution of responsibilities, and relevant reform work.

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To ensure that timely policy directions and guidance will be given to the reform committee, the Permanent Secretary for Health and the Under Secretary for Health will serve as members of the reform committee.