Unified Salary Guidelines for Community Care Sector

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health (a) what is the rationale for the existence of separate salary guidelines for the community care sector issued by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social and Family Development through the National Council of Social Service; and (b) whether the Ministries will collaborate to develop a unified set of salary guidelines to avoid confusion within the community care sector and to ensure consistency and clarity for both employers and employees.

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health (a) what is the projected increase in operational costs for community care institutions to adopt the new salary guidelines; (b) how will institutions run by voluntary welfare organisations with a tight budget be affected; (c) whether the increase in service costs will be passed on to beneficiaries; (d) whether the Ministry will help institutions to subsidise salary increments; and (e) what support will be provided to help institutions to attract and retain staff.

The salary guidelines for the community care sector have been published to provide greater transparency and clarity to jobseekers and community care workers on salaries in the sector. Through in-depth engagement sessions with Community Care Organisations (CCOs), the Ministry of Health (MOH) provides them with guidance on implementation, such as establishing the appropriate banding of staff and salaries.

It is in the CCO's own interest to abide by the guidelines, or they will not be competitive in attracting and retaining their staff, or pay them salaries that is commensurate with their contributions.

We will continue to monitor the salary movements of community care staff against the recommended salary levels through yearly surveys. In reviewing the guidelines, we will consider salary movements in relevant labour markets.

MOH and the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s (MSF's) salary guidelines apply to the healthcare and social service sectors respectively, as there are differences in the job roles and benchmarked to different sectors. Nonetheless, MOH and MSF will continue to exchange salary review plans and information on a regular basis.

Higher salaries will lead to higher operating costs for all CCOs. Since 2020, MOH has funded CCOs through the community care salary enhancements exercise. MOH will continue to fund and support CCOs to adopt the salary guidelines. However, CCOs will need to co-fund some of the salary increases and these could translate into modest increases in their fees.

Beyond ensuring that salaries in the community care sector are competitive, MOH and our agencies support the CCOs to ensure that their workforce is future-ready through training and development programmes. We have also worked with CCOs to redesign job roles to elevate community care careers and improve their attractiveness.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for her reply. I declare that I am an advisor to the Healthcare Services Employees' Union (HSEU). I have several supplementary questions. How are the salaries in the community compared to the acute hospitals and is there a significant difference? If so, will the pay alone be a significant factor in drawing manpower either way to institutions or to the community? Will there be any effect on our priorities in staffing the community hospitals or the hospitals in the acute sector?

Secondly, we need to think of ways to attract and retain talent beyond salary. To this end, what are the Ministry's plans to address other factors influencing staff satisfaction and retention, such as career progression, opportunities or mental health support? How are the unions involved in this?

I thank the Member for the question. With regards to the public healthcare institutions (PHIs), as the Member is an advisor to the HSEU, he would then be aware that the PHIs already have prevailing collective agreements signed with HSEU. These collective agreements include information on salary ranges and other information such as leave benefits. This is something that can be accessed through the HSEU's website and that provides a comparison with the CCOs.

The Member mentioned effects on staffing. Since 2020, MOH has been funding CCOs through the Community Care Salary Enhancements Exercise. Salary guidelines are published for purposes of transparency and clarity to jobseekers. It is intended to encourage them to see the benefits and salaries, but CCOs also have to do their part. They also have to attract and retain their staff.

For PHIs, MOH also does the same thing. We work with them to regularly monitor and review their salaries to keep it competitive against the market.

I would like to highlight to the Member that all these are costs. As you would know, our manpower costs already account for 50% of our expenses. This means that we are actually increasing the costs as we increase the services, and Government expenditure is expected to go up. I think all parties have to play a part in this. Already as it stands, we are looking at an increase and this increase has been growing in tandem with the healthcare demands.

The Member had also asked about the efforts to attract and retain workers. I think the Member had also filed a written Parliamentary Question, which is also scheduled for answer today, in relation to this. We have done many different efforts. As mentioned earlier, we also look at training and development. There is different funding support for a suite of initiatives to attract, develop and retain workers in the community care sector.