*********************************************************
Following is a question by Dr 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 (June 8):
Question:
On the 20th of April this year, the authorities replied to my question on the Course on National Affairs for staff of the Hospital Authority (HA). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) given that according to the aforesaid reply, the contents of the Course on National Affairs included lectures given by Mainland scholars and officials on national systems and policies in different areas such as healthcare reform and visits to healthcare institutions on the Mainland, and the junior doctors attended the Course on National Affairs on this occasion were mainly responsible for frontline clinical work, whether the authorities know the benefits, gained by junior doctors through attending the Course on National Affairs, on their clinical work; given that they came from different specialties, how such a course of visits and exchanges of a general nature can effectively raise their professional competence;
(2) whether it knows if it is the aim of HA to provide administrative training for junior doctors through the Course on National Affairs; if so, why HA has not recommended junior doctors to attend some basic administrative training courses which are normally arranged for healthcare personnel, such as the "Management 101" training programme, and instead chosen the Course on National Affairs for them, as well as of the administrative training courses (other than the Course on National Affairs) which HA recommended its junior doctors to attend in the past five years;
(3) given that the authorities have listed in the reply the Ministry of Health of Singapore, Hospital for Sick Children of Canada, Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, International Society for Quality in Health Care, International Hospital Federation, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in Singapore, overseas and local universities, Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and various specialist groups as the HA's training partners and the organisations with which HA conducted exchange activities in recent years, but the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the organiser of the Course on National Affairs, is the representative organisation of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the nature of its operation is totally different from that of the aforesaid healthcare organisations, whether the authorities know the criteria adopted by HA for deciding to accept the staff training sponsorship offered by such official political organisations, and whether HA accepted sponsorship offered by other political organisations in the past five years; and
(4) as it has been reported that the doctors concerned were granted special paid study leave when attending the one-week Course on National Affairs and those leave days would not be deducted from the total number of days of paid study leave which they were entitled to (total leave days), but junior doctors are only granted a maximum of 1.5 days of paid study leave each time when they attend professional qualifications examinations and the days of study leave granted for them to participate in academic exchange activities or refresher courses are required to be deducted from their total leave days, whether the authorities know why junior doctors, when attending the Course on National Affairs which was not directly related to their clinical work, could enjoy special treatment?
Reply:
President,
Our consolidated reply to the various parts of the question raised by Dr the Hon Leung Ka-lau relating to the participation of Hospital Authority (HA) staff in the Course on National Affairs is as follow:
The HA makes arrangements for its staff to participate in various training programmes and exchange visits. The training received by medical practitioners includes both clinical and non-clinical training with a wide scope of content. In order to meet operational needs, the HA has been providing Residents, newly promoted Associate Consultants and staff of equivalent rank of other grades with non-clinical training programmes on leadership, management skills, team building, on-the-job coaching, communication skills, etc. In the past five years, some 1 000 Residents participated in the HA's non-clinical training programmes.
The Course on National Affairs is neither a clinical training nor a specialist training for medical practitioners. Instead, it is one of the non-clinical training programmes, which aims at enhancing participants' understanding of the Mainland's systems and policies in various aspects, including Mainland's healthcare system. Visits to healthcare institutions in the Mainland are also arranged in this course.
As regards those training programmes involving an institution's nomination or recommendation, under HA's existing human resources policy, the HA will offer assistance in the form of financial sponsorship or study leave to its staff to facilitate their participation in activities which suit their training and development needs. When considering staff's applications for training and the granting of financial sponsorship, the HA mainly takes into account factors such as relevance of the training to the career development of the staff, whether the training is for the benefit of services for patients, etc.. The HA adopts the same approach when handling the nomination of its staff for the Course on National Affairs and those training programmes involving other institutions' nomination or recommendation.
The HA's acceptance of sponsorship from any institutions (including national government agencies in the Mainland, overseas or local universities and international institutions) is subject to approval according to HA's guidelines on "Acceptance of Advantages, Entertainment and Sponsorship". The guidelines set out the general criteria for considering whether to accept the sponsorship, for example, whether acceptance of the sponsorship will give rise to actual or perceived conflict of interest and will cause disrepute to the HA, whether the sponsorship is for the benefit of services for patients and whether the amount of sponsorship is reasonable, etc.. HA has all along been based on the said criteria in considering whether to accept the sponsorship from various institutions.
Ends/Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Issued at HKT 15:37
NNNN
