New Thinking in Labour and Welfare Policy Direction

The Chief Executive's Policy Address this year has no lack of novel initiatives in the areas of elderly service, rehabilitation service and supporting job-seekers. These reflect strategies of new direction in the labour and welfare portfolio.

Let me start with welfare. We are acutely aware of the growing demand for subsidised residential care places for the elders, in particular places providing nursing and continuum of care. This year, we have thought out of the box and come up with a three-pronged approach to accelerate supply of these places.

First, the ratio of nursing home places in contract residential care homes will be substantially increased from 50% to 90%. Second, we will purchase quality nursing home places from self-financing homes run by non-profit-making organisations. Third, we will maximise space in subsidised residential care homes to provide more places with continuum of care. These strategic moves are unprecedented.

In the next three years, five new contract homes will be opened to provide altogether 500 places while space has also been earmarked for new contract homes in 12 development projects under planning across the territory.

Our focus is not just on quantity but quality too. We will join hands with professional pharmacists to launch a pilot scheme to provide residential care homes with visiting pharmacist service. This scheme will further strengthen the knowledge and capability of elderly home staff in drug management and enhance their quality of care.

I must stress that many elders waiting for admission to residential care places are receiving subsidised community care service, be it home care service or centre-based day care service.

It is our policy to encourage elders to age at home and in the community, rather than in institutions. This is also the wishes of most elders. To this end, we will continue to put in resources to improve our community care service and increase the provision of day care places. We will also examine how best to enhance these services by encouraging social enterprises and the private market to join in.

Support for persons with disabilities (PWDs) is equally important. We fully understand the stress facing them, their families and carers and spare no effort to provide support. Sixteen District Support Centres for PWDs have been set up since January 2009. These "one-stop shops" provide a range of support service to meet the different needs of PWDs and help relieve the pressure of their families and carers.

To accelerate the provision of quality residential places for PWDs, a pilot Bought Place Scheme will be introduced to encourage private homes to upgrade their service standard. In tandem, we will continue to open more new subvented homes and assist non-governmental organisations in developing self-financing homes with a view to increasing the overall supply of residential places.

Incentives aside, I shall also introduce the Residential Care Homes (Persons with Disabilities) Bill into the Legislative Council in this legislative session to put in place a licensing framework to ensure the service quality of these homes.

Community support for persons with mental health problems is another area of public concern. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) will work closely with the Hospital Authority to step up community rehabilitation for discharged patients and the number of medical social workers will also be increased.

Our first Integrated Community Centre for Mental Wellness (ICCMW) was launched in Tin Shui Wai last March to provide one-stop, accessible and integrated community mental health support service to discharged patients, persons with suspected mental health problems and their families living in the district.

This model of ICCMW will be extended to all 18 districts throughout the
territory next year. This will be a big leap forward in the provision of mental health community support service.

Employment is the key to people's livelihood and social harmony. To enhance its employment service, the Labour Department (LD) will set up a pioneer one-stop employment and training centre in Tin Shui Wai. Apart from serving general job seekers, the Centre also targets at helping unemployed able-bodied CSSA recipients referred by SWD to achieve self-reliance. This new modus operandi aims to streamline, integrate and enhance the employment service currently rendered by LD, SWD and the Employees Retraining Board to provide tailor-made and client-oriented service for the unemployed. We will consider applying this model to other districts should the pilot prove successful.

LD's other new measures include setting up a dedicated recruitment centre for the retail industry in mid-2010, expanding its employer network and job vacancy database, providing selected non-governmental organisations with its Vacancy Search Terminal kiosks for connection to LD's vacancy database on a trial basis and using Short Message Service (SMS) to disseminate job information to registered job-seekers. Greater convenience and easy access to information do matter when it comes to job searching.

Labour and welfare policies impinge on people's livelihood and there is always room for improvement. Our prime task is to keep abreast of the aspirations of the community and respond as swiftly as possible. We shall rise to the challenge and strive to achieve this goal in serving the community.

Ends/Thursday, October 22, 2009