The Government will provide sufficient resources to support the operation and development of the public healthcare system, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said today.

Delivering his 2019-20 Budget, Mr Chan said the estimated recurrent government spending on public healthcare services will go up 10.9% to $80.6 billion in 2019-20, accounting for 18.3% of the total recurrent expenditure.

Mr Chan said public sector healthcare and supporting teams have been safeguarding the health of the community with professionalism and passion.

However, surges in demand coupled with manpower and facility constraints have added to their workload.

Noting the public healthcare system comes under great pressure in each influenza outbreak, the Financial Secretary said the Hospital Authority must properly plan and manage public hospital services.

To fully support the authority’s work, the Government will provide an additional recurrent funding of more than $700 million for measures to boost staff morale and retain talents.

These include increasing the rate of allowance for on-call medical officers, the rate of Special Honorarium Scheme allowance and the salary of ward supporting staff; increasing the number of Advanced Practice Nurse posts, allied health professional posts; and allocating additional resources to continue implementing the Special Retired & Rehire Scheme.

Mr Chan will also earmark an additional $5 billion for the authority to expedite its work in upgrading and acquiring medical equipment.

To facilitate the authority’s resource planning, the Government has adopted a triennium funding arrangement to progressively raise the recurrent funding for the authority having regard to population growth and demographic changes.

Mr Chan said he will earmark $10 billion to set up a public healthcare stabilisation fund to prepare for any additional expenditure which may be incurred by the authority due to unexpected circumstances.

To expand the scope of the Drug Formulary, the Budget has proposed to provide an additional recurrent subvention of $400 million.

District-based healthcare

The Government will also allocate resources to push ahead with district-based primary healthcare services to boost public awareness of disease prevention and their self-health management capability.

Mr Chan said over $150 million has been earmarked to meet the operating expenditure and staff cost of Hong Kong’s first district health centre in Kwai Tsing, which will start operation in this year’s third quarter.

About $1.2 billion will also be allocated to promote the clinical application and innovative scientific research on genomic medicine, he added.

The fund will be used for setting up the Hong Kong Genome Institute and taking forward the Hong Kong Genome Project, under which up to 50,000 whole genome sequencing will be performed in the next six years.