Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau today attended the opening ceremony of the Hospital Authority (HA) Convention 2025 and met multiple high-level delegations from the Mainland and overseas for in-depth exchanges on healthcare co-operation and development.

At the opening ceremony, Prof Lo witnessed the successful national accreditation of the Queen Mary Hospital Chest Pain Centre, making it the first chest pain centre in Hong Kong established in accordance with the national accreditation standards.

He said the establishment of a chest pain centre can improve the efficiency of acute chest pain diagnosis and speed up the time for patients to receive cardiac surgery, thereby lowering the death rate, shortening the hospitalisation period and reducing the hospital readmission rate.

The health chief also noted that the adoption of the national accreditation standards by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will also facilitate integration into the overall national development by fully utilising Hong Kong’s advantage of having the motherland's strong support and close connection with the world, with a view to demonstrating the excellence of the national healthcare standards to the international community, and helping promote the development of the national accreditation standards of chest pain centres into an internationally recognised standard.

Over the course of the convention, Prof Lo met multiple delegations from the Mainland and overseas and attended various events, taking the opportunity to promote medical co-operation and exchanges.

Among others, Prof Lo met Guangdong Health Commission Director-General Liu Liqun and his delegation to explore the exchange of healthcare talent between the two places, and to discuss healthcare collaboration projects, such as the Elderly Health Care Voucher Greater Bay Area Pilot Scheme and the cross-boundary use of electronic health records.

After the meeting, both sides attended the welcoming ceremony for the Mainland Healthcare Talents Visiting Programmes.

Prof Lo was pleased to note that since the 2022 launch of the visiting programmes, 80 outstanding doctors and two batches of about 170 nurses in total from the Mainland have come to the HA on exchange, while more than 25 specialists have also been arranged by the authority to conduct exchanges at public hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.

Afterwards, Prof Lo and the Consul General of France in Hong Kong & Macau Christile Drulhe jointly witnessed the signing of the Declaration of Intent between the HA and the National Conference of University Hospital General Managers of France.

The signing of the declaration formally establishes a strategic collaborative partnership between the two organisations in deepening mutual exchanges, promoting the joint development of hospital services and exchange of medical expertise.