Policy Address

Caring for the Elderly

118. In the face of an ageing population, the Government formulates cross-sectoral policies and initiatives to cater for the needs of the elderly. Over the past year, the Government has strengthened support for ageing in place and lifted the quality and quantity of residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs). Examples include expanding the Integrated Discharge Support Programme for Elderly Patients, regularising the Pilot Scheme on Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly, enhancing the Incentive Scheme to Encourage Provision of Residential Care Home for the Elderly Premises in New Private Developments, providing more residential care places for the elderly, importing care workers from outside Hong Kong, commencing the Review of Manpower for Healthcare Services in Residential Care Homes, etc. Considerable achievements have been made.

Elderly Services

119. The Government will continue to strengthen elderly services according to the principle of "ageing in place as the core, with institutional care as back-up". We will:

  1. provide more choices for cross-boundary elderly care – The Government earlier relaxed the eligibility of the Residential Care Services Scheme in Guangdong to allow Hong Kong private organisations with experience and a good track record in providing subsidised residential care services for the elderly to join the scheme. We will explore extending the scheme to include specific RCHEs operated by Mainland organisations next year so that elderly persons retiring in the Mainland cities of the GBA will have more choices. Based on the experience gained, we will also explore subsidising elderly recipients of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) who opt to stay in RCHEs under the Residential Care Services Scheme in Guangdong to better support elderly persons who choose to retire in the GBA;

  2. expand the Residential Care Service Voucher Scheme for the Elderly – Starting from the second quarter of next year, we will extend the coverage of the voucher from care-and-attention places to nursing home places, and provide 1 000 more vouchers, so that more eligible elderly persons can be admitted to participating RCHEs without waiting;