The government on Monday announced a blueprint for a major change in the public healthcare system to shift the focus from treatment to the prevention of illness.

At a press briefing, Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau noted that, at present, over 80 percent of public healthcare expenditure goes on specialist treatment in hospitals, while less than 20 percent is used for primary healthcare.

He also noted that the number of people with chronic illnesses is expected to grow from around 2.2 million now to 3 million in 2039, placing a further burden on the healthcare system.

“Primary healthcare is different from the traditional treatment-based system, because primary healthcare focuses on prevention and early detection and diagnoses. Especially, using chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as examples, if you can detect and diagnose these two conditions early, you’ll be able to avoid complications, rather than waiting until complication happens, and we’ll have to go to all the specialists and even tertiary care,” explained Lo.

“In that sense, that will help us in the long run, not just to improve our people’s health, save lives, but also to save money in our overall public healthcare expenditure,” he said.

Among other things, the government will promote the concept of “family doctors”, especially in the management of chronic diseases.

It is planning to provide a subsidy for the public to seek a diagnosis and receive management of certain chronic diseases – initially hypertension and diabetes – in the private sector under the “chronic disease co-care programme”.

In addition, the government is proposing to set up a Primary Healthcare Commission to strengthen governance, as well as a Strategic Purchasing Office to coordinate services and resources.

The current elderly healthcare voucher scheme will be increased from HK$2,000 to HK$2,500, and more than half of the sum can be used for health management and the management of chronic diseases.

When asked about a timeline for implementing the changes, Lo said the government will first collect views and refine the details of its proposals.

“We have short, medium and long-term goals. And so, for the timetable, for example, when we now put up the primary healthcare blueprint, we will start discussions with different stakeholders, including the medical profession, other healthcare professions, our patients and various interested parties. So, this will be done in the next few months,” he said.