Budget Speech

Taking Care of the Elderly

144.      To pursue the policy objective of “ageing in place”, the Government will continue to allocate resources to support elders to age at home. I propose to increase annual recurrent funding by $76 million to provide about 1 700 additional places for community care services for elders, including 1 500 places for the Enhanced Home and Community Care Services and about 200 day care places for the elderly. I also propose to increase annual recurrent funding for the well-received pilot Integrated Discharge Support Programme for Elderly Patients by $148 million to make it a regular service and extend its coverage from the current three districts to all districts. Under the Programme, one-stop support services will be provided for elderly people discharged from hospitals to help them make a quick recovery. Upon the full extension of the Programme, the number of elders benefited each year is expected to increase from the current 8 000 to around 33 000.

145.      On residential care services, the Chief Executive has announced in his Policy Address that the Government will provide additional subsidised residential care places by building new residential care homes, making full use of the space of existing homes and offering more places under the Enhanced Bought Place Scheme. I propose an increase of $130 million in the annual recurrent funding to provide about
1 300 additional subsidised residential care places, including nursing home places, care-and-attention places and places offering a continuum of care.

146.      To enhance the service quality of residential care homes under the Enhanced Bought Place Scheme, I propose to increase annual recurrent funding by $40 million to raise the purchase prices for EA1 places. The residential care homes concerned will be required to provide physiotherapy treatment and rehabilitation training for the elderly. This will also help enhance the quality of private residential care homes.

147.      In addition, I propose to increase annual recurrent funding by $45 million to raise the supplements for subsidised residential care homes so that they can take better care of demented or infirm elders. The coverage of the Dementia Supplements will also be extended to all subsidised day care centres for the provision of more targeted services to patients residing in the community.

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