An evaluation of community care services for the elderly in Hong Kong

Abstract

PurposeThis article analyses community care services (CCS) in terms of availability, awareness, accessibility, and acceptance (the Four A’s approach), untangles the deep-seated factors underlying the CCS and provides some short-term, medium-term, and long-term recommendations.Design/methodology/approachA literature review was conducted, including relevant government reports, consultation papers, Legislative Council papers and articles from academic journals from 1980 to the present.FindingsThe Four A’s approach shows that applicants to both centre-based services and home-based services endure lengthy waiting times because of the limited number of CCS. Furthermore, the awareness of day respite services is approximately 50 percent, which lags behind other CCS. Accessibility is contingent on a cross-district day respite service system and a lack of consistency between the quota and the proportion of older adults in the districts. Finally, the level of service provided by CCS is unsatisfactory due to inflexible service provision. Reviewing the brief history of long-term care services (LTC) reveals the deep-seated factors at the core of their heavy reliance on the subvention model, in contrast to the adoption of the ‘mixed economy of care’ by residential care services (RCS). An imbalance in budget allocation to RCS and CCS is also revealed.Originality/valueAlthough the principle of ‘ageing in place’ was introduced in 1977, the institutionalisation rate (6.8 percent) of older adults remains unexpectedly high in Hong Kong, even surpassing its Asian counterparts, whereas the usage rate of CCS hovers around 0.8 percent. Thus, how to implement policy concerning LTC services for older adults must be re-evaluated.