A&E attendances fall 3.9pc after public hospital fee reform

Attendances at Hong Kong’s public accident and emergency departments fell 3.9 percent in the first half of the year following the introduction of new public hospital charges, while the number of patients receiving medical fee waivers increased sharply, the Hospital Authority said.

The city’s 18 public A&E departments recorded 913,248 attendances in the first six months of 2026, down 3.9 percent from the same period last year.

The authority said targets for prioritizing Category I, or critical, and Category II, or emergency, patients were fully met.

The proportion of Category III, or urgent, patients treated within 30 minutes rose from 81.4 percent to 88.5 percent, while their average waiting time fell from 23 minutes to 20 minutes.

Attendances by semi-urgent and non-urgent patients declined by about 10 percent overall, with non-urgent cases falling by around 20 percent.

The authority also reported fewer missed appointments for non-urgent radiology services following the introduction of an advance-payment requirement in mid-April. Patients are required to settle the fee at least 14 days before their scheduled appointment.

Between April and June, missed appointments for computed tomography scans fell by around 28 percent from a year earlier. The corresponding declines for magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound scans were about 40 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

The improvement is expected to free up around 6,000 CT, 2,500 MRI and 9,000 ultrasound appointment slots each year.

Demand for medications prescribed on an as-needed basis had also fallen by about 12 percent as of the end of June, the authority said.

Meanwhile, 289,799 applications for medical fee waivers were received by June 30, of which 264,087 were approved. The approval rate exceeded 90 percent, while the number of applications was nearly 19 times the annual volume recorded before the reform.

After excluding patients who would have qualified for assistance under both the old and new arrangements, about 90,000 patient visits were covered by the expanded waiver mechanism during the first half of the year. The vast majority received treatment free of charge.

Under the HK$10,000 annual medical fee cap, 10,595 patients had their applications approved by the end of June. They will not be required to pay further eligible public medical expenses for the remainder of the financial year.

An authority spokesman said the figures indicated that the reform was moving in the right direction and had produced initial results. The authority is reviewing the first phase before proceeding with the next stage of the overhaul.

The authority has also added 16 drugs to its Drug Formulary over the past six months, including seven targeted therapies for cancer.

Six of the newly listed treatments have been classified as Special Drugs, meaning eligible patients are required to pay only the standard fee of HK$20 every four weeks.

During the same period, the Samaritan Fund expanded its subsidies to cover 17 newly introduced drugs, medical devices or broadened clinical indications, including 10 cancer treatments.

Coverage will be further extended this month to another 10 newly added drugs or expanded clinical indications, as well as 26 self-financed medical devices.

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