Community Care Fund rolls out Pilot Scheme on Support for Elderly Persons Discharged from Public Hospitals after Treatment
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The Community Care Fund (CCF) rolled out the Pilot Scheme on Support for Elderly Persons Discharged from Public Hospitals after Treatment today (February 26). The three-year pilot scheme supports elderly persons just discharged from public hospitals who are in need of transitional care and support, by providing them with transitional residential care and/or community care and support services for not more than six months in total. It aims at enabling them to continue ageing-in-place in a familiar community after receiving necessary services during the transitional period and preventing their premature long-term institutionalisation in residential care homes for the elderly.
The pilot scheme, administered by the Social Welfare Department (SWD), will be pioneered in seven hospitals (United Christian Hospital, Tseung Kwan O Hospital, Prince of Wales Hospital, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, North District Hospital, Tuen Mun Hospital and Pok Oi Hospital) under three hospital clusters of Hospital Authority (Kowloon East, New Territories East and New Territories West) through a medical-social collaboration model.
The pilot scheme will adopt six co-payment categories on a sliding scale, and eligible elderly persons are required to co-pay an amount of the service value. The SWD will determine the amount of co-payment according to the monthly household income of elderly persons with the co-payment percentages ranging from the lowest 5 per cent to the highest 40 per cent. After co-payment, all remaining service value will be paid by the CCF such that the less an elderly person can afford, the more subsidy he/she will receive from the fund. Elderly persons may select the appropriate service value package according to their needs. The pilot scheme is expected to benefit at least 3 200 elderly persons.
Beneficiaries shall meet the following criteria:
- aged 60 or above; and
- temporary loss of self-care ability due to illness and assessed by medical staff of the Hospital Authority to be in need of transitional care and support (i.e. in need of temporary residential care and/or community care and support services after discharge from hospitals), and not covered under the existing Integrated Discharge Support Programme for Elderly Patients.
The pilot scheme will be implemented from February 2018 until the end of January 2021. In the course of the pilot scheme, medical staff of relevant hospitals will refer eligible elderly persons to the Discharge Support Team (DST) of the SWD. Social workers of the DST will explain the details of the pilot scheme to elderly persons and/or their family members and will also help the elderly persons interested in the pilot scheme to submit applications to the CCF Team of the SWD for conducting means tests. Eligible elderly persons may receive the services from February 2018 at the earliest.
Details of the pilot scheme can be found on the CCF website (www.communitycarefund.hk) or the SWD website (www.swd.gov.hk). For enquiries, members of the public may also call the CCF Team of the SWD on 3422 3090 during office hours.
Ends/Monday, February 26, 2018
Issued at HKT 15:00
Issued at HKT 15:00
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