The 2022 Policy Address has recently been delivered by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR). The Hong Kong College of Family Physicians (HKCFP) welcomes the Government’s strong determination and commitment to revamp the healthcare system from a treatment-oriented, hospital-based structure to a prevention-focused, community-based system, by investing additional resources to promote primary healthcare. And we have issued a press release on 28 October 2022 on this topic.

The Primary Healthcare Blueprint, which is anticipated to be published by end of this year, will focus on promoting the “Family Doctor for All” concept as the essential foundation for sustainable people-centric primary healthcare in the community. Over the decades, the HKCFP has been advocating that “Everyone should have a Family Doctor”, as local and international research has shown people with personal family doctors had better health and less utilisation of hospital services. Family Doctors provide accessible continuing comprehensive whole-person patient-centred care to people of all ages throughout the different stages in life. Family Doctors are “specialists in people”, trained to enable individuals and families to manage their acute and chronic problems, provide anticipatory and preventive care, and coordinate multi-disciplinary care for people according to their needs throughout their life journey. 

Healthcare systems with strong primary healthcare teams led by Family Doctors have proven to be more cost-effective and can improve patient satisfaction. In order to be better prepared for the future primary healthcare service needs, the HKCFP reiterates that it is of paramount importance to allocate more Family Medicine training positions. For the local population of 7.5 million, we have projected that Hong Kong needs to have at least 100 new Family Doctor training posts annually to provide sustainable primary healthcare services. The time to act is now.

The HKCFP applauds the Government’s initiative in setting up the Primary Healthcare Authority (PHA) for better coordination and governance of primary healthcare services across the public and private sectors. As one of the founding colleges of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, the HKCFP is committed to the accreditation and training of Family Medicine specialists in Hong Kong since her establishment in 1977. HKCFP is responsible for the postgraduate education and training of Family Doctors. We organise a full spectrum of continuing professional development programmes to suit the different needs of primary care doctors in various stages of their career including Continued Medical Education, structured Certificate and Diploma courses in Family Medicine, and Specialist Fellowship and Exit Examinations. Our College is eagerly looking forward to working closely with the PHA and the Health Bureau in connecting with Family Doctors in the community.

With the ageing population, increasing prevalence of chronic disease, and the prolonged waiting time for specialist services in the public hospitals, it calls for a service re-engineering whereby Family Doctors partner with the District Health Centres (DHCs) to ensure the delivery of the best primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of chronic diseases, e.g. hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Over 70% of primary care services in Hong Kong is provided by the private sector. Hence, the HKCFP welcomes and fully supports the Government in setting up a mechanism to purchase service from the private practitioners so that the ever-increasing workload in the public sector can be shared effectively and efficiently with the private sector. Our ultimate goal is to enable the best use of resources to achieve quality primary care for all people in Hong Kong.

Our Conjoint Fellowship Examination has been held successfully in recent weeks. Many thanks to our Board of Conjoint Examination and the College secretariat who have been liaising with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) continuously to make the smooth running of the Examination possible. We are grateful towards the RACGP for their ongoing support for the Conjoint Examination. Last but not least, we are indebted to the candidates and the examiners who have shown their staunch support and patience for the Examination. All the best to the candidates again!

Please keep well and stay safe.