Contingency measures will be implemented in public hospitals and clinics to cope with the surge in demand triggered by the influenza season.

The Hospital Authority's Central Committee on Infectious Disease & Emergency Response held a meeting today and decided to introduce temporary measures to strengthen healthcare services.

The following measures will be implemented as and when necessary in different hospital clusters:

* enhancing support to elderly homes by Community Geriatric Assessment Service, Community Nursing Service and Visiting Medical Officer programmes;

* creating additional observation areas and temporary areas to solve the capacity limitation of Emergency Medical Wards and reduce unnecessary admission to medical wards;

* strengthening the gate-keeping at Accident & Emergency Departments by joint clinical management supported by clinicians of Paediatrics, Medical and Geriatrics Departments;

* more frequent ward rounds in paediatric, medical and geriatric wards, especially during weekends to ensure early discharge of appropriate patients;

* early discharge of stable patients to the community with appropriate follow up and transfer appropriate patients to convalescent hospitals for further management;

* overflowing excess medical patients to other wards by using the bed alert mechanism;

* strengthening the use of ambulatory wards and open additional beds in both acute and convalescent wards to accommodate the increase in admission; and,

* reducing non-urgent admission and activities.

Accident & Emergency Department doctors will assess and triage patients for admission arrangement. If there is a sudden surge in patients seeking consultation, patients with minor ailment may need to wait longer.