Secretary for Home & Youth Affairs Alice Mak said today that the Government plans to optimise services provided by the second-term District Services & Community Care Teams in three key directions.

At a media session, Miss Mak said the new-term care teams will be expected to provide residents with uninterrupted services, cater for district needs, and also deepen and broaden their service coverage.

The first-term service agreements for care teams will conclude between late September and mid-October, and the Government has decided to increase the number of teams from 452 to 455 in the second-term.

Sha Ta (North District) will be split into two sub-districts, while Sheung Shui Rural (North District) and Hang Hau West (Sai Kung District) will each acquire one new team. The boundaries of six sub-district clusters will also be fine-tuned.

Miss Mak said: “We have assessed the service coverage and the demographic changes in each sub-district. We can see that the populations of certain districts have increased, so we have increased two care teams to cater for the demographic changes.

“This is to provide better services for our residents.”

As of the end of June, care teams had visited about 530,000 elderly households and other households in need. They had provided basic home or other support services on some 76,000 occasions, and organised about 38,000 district-level activities.