llied health services in HA are pivotal in ensuring continuous care for patients. Understanding the needs and concerns and establishing continuous dialogue with allied health colleagues is fundamental to maintaining a happy workforce with strong morale.

Seven forums were organised between March and May 2011 in all clusters to strengthen communication between frontline allied health staff and senior management, including Dr Cheung Wai-lun, Director (Cluster Services); Dr Derrick Au, Head of Human Resources; cluster chief executives; and allied health grade managers. A total of about 500 colleagues attended the forums.

Besides sharing new initiatives and work plan in 2011/12 with staff, the forums listened to concerns in remuneration, career advancement, manpower, resource allocation, and grade specific issues. The management promised to study colleagues' opinions and explore improvement measures.

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irst introduced by HA in April last year, the Personalised Care Programme for severe mental illness patients was piloted in Yuen Long, Kwai Tsing, and Kwun Tong for 4,600 patients. In this personalised programme, each patient has a designated case manager who helps them reintegrate into the community since discharged from hospital.

Establishing a close service relationship throughout the recovery journey, the case manager tailor make a care plan for patient. Besides improving both the mental condition and the patient's relationship with family, case managers also reported great satisfaction from their job.

The programme has been extended to five more districts since April 2011, namely Hong Kong East, Sham Shui Po, Sha Tin, Tuen Mun and Wan Chai.

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he appointment of Dr Au, formerly the HCE of Kowloon Hospital and Hong Kong Eye Hospital, and Service Director of Allied Health, Geriatric & Community Care in the Kowloon Central Cluster, was effective from 10 July 2011. He had been Deputising Head of Human Resources since November 2010.

A physician and specialist in rehabilitation medicine and geriatric medicine, Dr Au has served in public hospitals since 1983. He had worked as the Chief of Service in the Department of Rehabilitation of KH since 1993 and Deputy HCE of the hospital since 2007. The new HR head has contributed greatly to hospital and corporate initiatives, including the implementation of a new grading and salary structure for GSA and TSA; and the organisation of an integrated discharge and support programme for high-risk elderly patients.