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Executive Summaryxecutive Summary
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The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report entitled Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce
2030 in 2016 to guide health system planners and policymakers in the development of health systems globally. With reference
to projections of best estimates presented in the report, 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
countries are projected to face a shortfall against service requirements of 1.2 million physicians by 2030. With this perspective
in mind, amidst this global shortage of doctors, it is of critical importance to assess how well Hong Kong is doing in leveraging
non-locally trained doctors to supplement current and projected workforce shortages.

Hong Kong’s health system continues to be challenged by a severe shortage of doctors, and it is only getting worse

• Hong Kong continues to fall behind global counterparts in its doctor-to-population ratio. As of 2020, Hong Kong’s population
of close to 7.5 million was served by 15,298 fully registered doctors, equating to having approximately 2.0 doctors for
every 1,000 people in Hong Kong. Continuing to fare worse than comparable Asian jurisdictions, such as Singapore
(2.5) and other well-developed regions in the world (OECD countries average at 3.5), Hong Kong will need an addition of
approximately 3,500 to catch up to Singapore and 11,000 doctors to catch up to OECD countries.

• Hong Kong continues to deteriorate from levels it once achieved in the ratio of doctors to the elderly population (aged ≥65 years)
and doctors to the chronic disease patient population. Hong Kong will now need an addition of thousands of doctors to bring the
ratios back to what was achieved in 2000.
• Hong Kong continues to suffer from a severe shortage of doctors, and the shortage gap has further widened in the short-
to medium- term as revealed in the Food and Health Bureau (FHB) Healthcare Manpower Projection 2020. The latest
projections show a shortfall of 1,610 doctors by 2030 and 1,949 by 2040 assuming the maintenance of the 2017 standard
of health service delivery. As Hong Kong moves away from this undesirable standard that is clearly inadequate to cater for
increasing healthcare demands, the Hong Kong SAR Government (HKSARG; or referred to as the Government)’s projected
shortfalls are clearly underestimates.

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