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1.5 HONG KONG’S PROGRESS IN PRIMARY

HEALTHCARE DEVELOPMENT

Hong Kong has made strides towards developing PHC in the post-war period, but
subsequent PHC development has only been made through intermittent efforts in past
decades (Figure 1.13).

Figure 1.13
Major primary healthcare development milestones (2009–present)

• Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme (EHCVS) launched
2009

• Primary Care Of ce (PCO) set up under the Department of Health (DH)
• Two Reference Frameworks for Diabetes Care and Hypertension Care for Adults in Primary
2010 Care Settings published

• Primary Care Directory launched
2011

• Steering Committee on PHC Development established
2017

• The Chief Executive announced the setting up of DHCs across aII districts using the Kwai
Tsing District Health Centre (DHC) as blueprint
2018
• Primary Healthcare Of ce (PHO) established under the Food and Health Bureau (FHB);
Former PCO integrated with PHO
2019 • Kwai Tsing DHC established
• Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS) launched

Source: PHO, 2020

The discussion of PHC development in Hong Kong can be traced back to 1990 with the
launch of the Report of the Working Party on Primary Health Care, Health for All–The Way
Ahead. Over the past three decades, several policy papers also recommended different
policies as listed in Table 1.2. The 2010 Primary Care Development Strategy Document
(Box 1.5) included the prevention of chronic diseases as one of its key initiatives. Today it has
become one of the key functions of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP), another arm
under the DH.

More recent efforts including the work of a high-level Steering Committee on
Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases have been guiding the
formulation and implementation of various action plans against NCDs, tabling performance
targets with references to WHO frameworks and local contexts, including the latest Towards
2025: Strategy and Action Plan to Prevent and Control NCD in Hong Kong launched in 2018
(Table 1.2). Other initiatives on prevention and control of disease include the Hong Kong
Cancer Strategy (2019), vaccination, dementia community support,
mental health, and anti-smoking measures (HKSARG, 2019d). These efforts of
population-based interventions and multimedia literacy campaigns are yet to be reviewed for
its efficacy, with regular chronic disease screening behaviour continuing to be low on
citizens’ health-seeking agenda (for details, please refer to Chapter 4.2).

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