The Chronic Disease Co-Care (CDCC) Pilot Scheme is one of the essential components at the initial stage of realising the Primary Healthcare Blueprint, and a kick-off ceremony has been organised by the Health Bureau recently to officially launch the programme.  The officiating guests included the Secretary for Health, Professor Lo Chung-mau; Legislative Councillor Dr David Lam; the Permanent Secretary for Health, Mr. Thomas Chan; the Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Libby Lee; the Director of Health, Dr. Ronald Lam; the Chairman of the Hospital Authority, Mr. Henry Fan; and myself, the President of the Hong Kong College of Family Physicians. (please click) Our College is in full support of the CDCC Pilot Scheme which opens up a new page of primary healthcare development and demonstrating the crucial role of family doctors in helping to maintain the health of the population in the community.

The ceremony took place at Sham Shui Po District Health Centre and was well attended by 100 guests from various backgrounds, including chairmen, chief executives, directors and representatives from the public and private healthcare sectors, patient organisations, the Department of Health, the Hospital Authority, and District Health Centres.

In the opening speech of the ceremony, Professor Lo Chung-mau called on eligible persons to take action in commencing a healthy life journey by participating in the Scheme through enrolment as a member of District Health Centres (DHCs), joining in the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHealth), and pairing with a family doctor of their choice. He said that the CDCC Pilot Scheme is a brand-new subsidy scheme in which with government subsidies, members of the public only need to pay an affordable co-payment amount to receive screening and follow-up services in the private healthcare sector with respect to diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HT), thus creating a 'win-win-win' situation to benefit citizens, doctors as well as the healthcare system as a whole. Professor Lo also mentioned that under the CDCC Pilot Scheme, the Government will make the best use of the community healthcare networks with DHCs as the hub for the prevention and management of chronic diseases and establishment of a family doctor system, and through utilising the strength of the private healthcare sector to alleviate the pressure on the public healthcare sector, the resources in the public healthcare system will be able to focus more on caring for the underprivileged.

As reiterated by Professor Lo, family doctors are important partners of the scheme. The latest figures show that over 400 family doctors have joined the Scheme, involving nearly 30 healthcare organisations and covering 600 service points. With this strong force of family doctors, he encourages citizens to seize the opportunity to pair with a regular family doctor through the Scheme, and establish a long-term doctor-patient relationship with mutual trust as partners in healthy life to realise the slogan of the kick-off ceremony, 'Partnering in the Health Journey for a Healthy Life'."

The DHCs/DHCEs support family doctors in utilising their service networks to facilitate the delivery of inter-disciplinary primary healthcare services, and they also follow up on the medical arrangements for participants according to the recommendations of family doctors and set health management goals together with the participants for building a healthy lifestyle.

The list of family doctors participating in the CDCC Pilot Scheme, service flow, government subsidy level and co-payment amount details and frequently asked questions of the Scheme are available on the CDCC Pilot Scheme dedicated website (please click). I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our family doctor colleagues who have already shown tremendous support for the programme and participated in the Scheme. I would encourage even more family doctors to join in to partner with the patients in their life long journey of health. Go far, go together!