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Current efforts directed at primary care provision should be stepped up to advance PHC
development in Hong Kong. Comparable salaries between non-specialists and family
medicine specialists, and the lengthy specialist training process, were noted to have hindered
the popularisation of the family medicine specialty in Hong Kong. To prepare for the
upcoming surge in cases of chronic diseases, stakeholders opined that additional
training in primary care provision in the form of short courses should be
offered for all physicians practising in the health system in Hong Kong
regardless of their specialist status. The importance of raising public awareness of
disease prevention through social media channels was also highlighted by interviewees.

Stakeholders’ voices

[General practitioners] may not be familiar with the management of
certain diseases if they rarely encounter these problems in the
past. They should be more equipped with knowledge about
management of diabetes and hypertension to ensure the quality of
care is up to standard. Hopefully, they can adopt the local
guidelines, released by the Government to manage these chronic
diseases in local context; and they can fulfil the voluntary-based
Continuing Medical Education (CME) scheme.

Public service provider

I would definitely agree that no matter what background they
(private physicians, regardless of attainment of specialty
qualification) are from previously, as long as they are in the
community, they will certainly see at least a certain percentage of
patients who are having primary care problems, family medicine
problems, and chronic diseases. I’m sure they will come across
this. So, it will be a great benefit for the patients attending these
private doctors if they (private physicians) would have a certain
degree of knowledge in terms of managing day-to-day issues of
primary care.

Professional body representative

You (OHKF) have to see how to disseminate this thing
(preventive services), but mainly the public needs to
understand the importance of prevention as well. This is
where the media comes in. You can do radio programs, TV,
and so on. You need all these things to happen together.
For example, you want to push some Government policies
and influence the Government–you’re gonna raise
awareness among the public of what you’re talking about.

Academic

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