The Hospital Authority said over the first quarter of this year, its Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine (ICWM) services expanded from eight designated public hospitals to 26, totalling 65 service points.

Rowena Wong, Chief Manager of the Chinese Medicine Department of Hospital Authority, said in light of Hong Kong's ageing population, authorities hoped to improve patient care by combining different types of treatments.

"We have over 100 Chinese medicine practitioners joining our programme. All of them are trained. We are providing more training for them, including [those] that we send to the Guangdong province to join an enhanced inpatient training programme," she said.

"We see that so far we are grooming the Chinese medicine practitioners into integrated programme areas, and so far, we have very good feedback."

Additionally, the number of designated disease areas within the programme has grown to six, including a pilot programme for respiratory treatment.

The pilot began at the Haven of Hope Hospital in April last year and has served approximately 120 patients as of March this year.

The programme has since expanded to Kowloon Hospital, Ruttonjee Hospital and Grantham Hospital.

Wong said the ICWM programme in general is a crucial initiative for advancing Chinese medicine.

She added that the Health Bureau would unveil a development blueprint for Chinese medicine later this year, which was expected to provide clearer direction and strategies for enhancing the integration of Chinese and Western medicine.