Press Releases

Steering Committee on Review of the Regulation of Private Healthcare Facilities conducts first meeting (with photo)

The Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, today (November 2) chaired the first meeting of the Steering Committee on Review of the Regulation of Private Healthcare Facilities. The Steering Committee is tasked with reviewing the regulatory regime for the private healthcare facilities in Hong Kong, which covers private hospitals, nursing homes, non-profit-making clinics and other types of private healthcare facilities. The review aims at strengthening the regulatory control over private healthcare facilities so as to safeguard people's health and consumer rights.

The Steering Committee decided to set up four working groups at the meeting, each of which will focus on a priority area and conduct in-depth research and work out options for the way forward. These four priority areas are: (i) differentiation of medical procedures/practices and beauty services; (ii) defining high-risk medical procedures/practices performed in an ambulatory setting; (iii) regulation of premises processing health products for advanced therapies; and (iv) regulation of private hospitals.

The first working group to be set up is tasked to differentiate medical procedures/practices from beauty services. The working group, chaired by the Director of Health, Dr Constance Chan, will comprise Steering Committee members and co-opted members from relevant medical specialties, the beauty industry and consumer groups. By making recommendations on procedures which should be performed by registered medical practitioners, the working group seeks to address the health risk brought by beauty parlours improperly performing medical procedures under the cover of providing "medical beauty services". The working group is expected to present its initial recommendations to the Steering Committee by the second quarter of 2013.

Dr Ko said, "The active participation of our members at today's meeting has provided the Government with valuable insights and comments. We will make appointments to the remaining three working groups as soon as practicable by inviting relevant groups or individuals to participate so that recommendations could be made to the Steering Committee on the regulatory model of the priority areas."

Following is the list of co-opted members of the Working Group on Differentiation between Medical Procedures and Beauty Services:

Dr Ho King-man
Professor Henry Chan Hin-lee
Dr Ho Chiu-ming
Dr Walter King Wing-keung
Dr David Wong Sau-yan
Ms Amy Hui
Ms Rinbo Chan
Ms Sandra Tsoi Lai-ha
Ms Cecilia Kuk
Mr Nelson Ip Sai-hung
Ms Maggie Leung
Ms Quby Tang Mei-yee
A representative from the Federation of Medical Societies of Hong Kong



Ends/Friday, November 2, 2012
Issued at HKT 18:06

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