The Government today released the first Chinese Medicine Development Blueprint for Hong Kong, outlining the vision for Chinese medicine (CM) development in the city.

The blueprint envisions a future that inherits the wisdom of CM while leveraging the Mainland's extensive experience and resources. By integrating CM into a comprehensive healthcare system, Hong Kong will serve as a bridgehead for the international expansion of CM.

The vision will be realised by short, medium and long-term goals and action plans across key areas, covering five key domains with numerous goals and actions proposed.

These domains embrace the CM profession, its services, and cultural inheritance, as well as the development of Chinese medicines, and the "Go Global" promotion of CM by leveraging Hong Kong's service model.

Unveiling the blueprint at a press conference today, Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau emphasised the Government’s commitment to the development of CM and noted that the blueprint aligns with the nation’s CM development strategies.

Commissioner for Chinese Medicine Development Vincent Chung said at the press conference that as far as clinical practice guidelines are concerned, the priority is to define the best practices in terms of CM diagnosis and treatment.

“We are going to create Chinese medicine practice guidelines and also pathways, and that will of course, number one, define what the best practices are in terms of Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment,” he said.

As for the clinical pathway, an issue of concern is defining the different professionals to deliver the best services for patients, using overseas healthcare systems as references.

“In Malaysia, in Australia, in Singapore they have Chinese medicine practitioners being regulated and they are regulated healthcare professionals. They can actually make references to our model in terms of service development, so they can actually make use of their Chinese medicine resources and professionals better in their health systems, if we call it that way, and actually export our services model,” Mr Chung said.

He added that the other key area is Chinese herbal medicine standards and the testing technology being developed at the Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute.

“These can actually help different countries and regions to advance their regulatory best practices and also to know how to apply this new technology in clarifying the quality of all these Chinese herbal medicines,” he said.

Prof Lo said that the Government will work closely with the CM sector to implement the blueprint’s recommendations in an orderly manner to provide comprehensive, quality CM services to the public.