Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau today met members of the Medical Council of Hong Kong (MCHK) for in-depth exchanges of views on the amendment to the Medical Registration Ordinance.

As a statutory body established under the ordinance, the MCHK regulates the medical profession in accordance with the powers conferred by legislation, including handling the registration of medical practitioners, overseeing the Licensing Examination, formulating professional codes and guidelines, and conducting disciplinary inquiries into complaints involving professional misconduct of medical practitioners. 

To ensure that the legislation for healthcare professions keeps pace with the times and meets societal needs and the public interest, the Government needs to review the ordinance from time to time and propose amendments as necessary, with a view to enabling the MCHK to discharge its statutory functions more effectively, including its function in handling complaints.

Prof Lo noted that the MCHK has been continuously adjusting and enhancing its work in response to new trends in healthcare development in recent years. These include issuing ethical guidelines on providing services to patients through telemedicine by doctors to meet societal needs, and fully supporting the Government's policy to admit non-locally trained doctors by establishing the Special Registration Committee to assess medical qualifications from different places. To date, a total of 150 medical qualifications from different places have been recognised.

The MCHK upholds the mission of ensuring justice, maintaining professionalism and protecting the public. Vested with independent quasi-judicial functions and powers to impose disciplinary sanctions through disciplinary proceedings on doctors whose professional standards or ethical conduct fall short of the required standards, the MCHK has a statutory responsibility and the powers to protect patients' interests. 

The intent behind this legislative amendment to the ordinance is to enhance the efficiency of the MCHK's complaint handling, while maintaining professionalism and fairness, and to enhance doctors' professional standards.

Prof Lo said: “I am grateful to members of the MCHK for offering their valuable advice on further enhancing transparency and accountability in the work of the MCHK by drawing on their own experience participating in the work of the MCHK.”

He added that the Government will consider the views received holistically in finalising the legislative proposal, including clarifying various implementation details.

The Health Bureau noted that the MCHK recognised that handling complaints against doctors was crucial to safeguarding professional standards, and had been striving to address bottlenecks in the complaint handling process in recent years. 

In response to public concern last year about the MCHK's investigation and disciplinary inquiry mechanism for handling complaints, the MCHK reviewed the mechanism earlier at the request of the Secretary for Health and submitted a report to the bureau on improving the mechanism's operation to safeguard doctors' professional standards.

Meanwhile, to ensure continuous enhancement of healthcare professional standards in support of Hong Kong's determination to develop into an international health and medical innovation hub, the bureau announced earlier to amend the ordinance, having regard to the report's recommendations and the operational needs of the MCHK, targeting to introduce a bill to the Legislative Council in the first half of this year.

The bureau consulted patient groups, the two local medical schools, the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, the Hong Kong Medical Association and various medical professional associations on the amendment to the ordinance last month.

It will brief LegCo’s Panel on Health Services shortly on the proposed directions and enhancement proposals for the ordinance.