Waiting Time for New Case Booking at
Eye Specialist Out-patient Clinics



Specialist outpatient clinics have implemented a triage system to ensure patients with urgent conditions requiring early intervention are treated with priority. Referrals of new patients are usually first screened by a nurse and then by a specialist doctor of the relevant specialty for classification into Urgent, Semi-urgent and Stable categories. HA's targets are to maintain the median waiting time of Urgent and Semi-urgent cases within two weeks and eight weeks respectively.

In the past 12 months (01 January 2023 - 31 December 2023), there were 155,341 new case bookings in Eye Specialist Out-patient Clinics, with waiting time as follows:
 
  New case bookings(2) Waiting Time
Number
Percentage
 
Hong Kong East
Hong Kong West
Kowloon Central
Kowloon East
Kowloon West
New Territories East
New Territories West
Urgent Case
45,021
29%
Median
Less than 1 week
1 week
Less than 1 week
Less than 1 week
Less than 1 week
Less than 1 week
Less than 1 week
Semi-urgent Case
32,915
21%
Median
7
weeks
6
weeks
2
weeks
6
weeks
5
weeks
5
weeks
3
weeks
Stable Case
77,373
50%
Median
38
weeks
61
weeks
81
weeks
81
weeks
23
weeks
74
weeks
83
weeks
Longest(1)
76
weeks
65
weeks
101
weeks
99
weeks
204
weeks
99
weeks
93
weeks

(For reference only)
Date of Next Update: 30 April 2024

Notes:
(1) The longest (90th percentile) waiting time implies that appointments are earlier than the indicated time in 90% of the new case bookings
(2) Excluding cases pending for triage
(3) With effect from 1 October 2022, the waiting time for new case booking at Specialist Out-patient Clinics has incorporated integrated clinics


Due to recent surge of new referrals, Hong Kong Eye Hospital (HKEH) in Kowloon Central Cluster needs to focus resources and manpower on urgent patients of the Priority 1 and Priority 2 categories. Starting from 3 January 2022, HKEH will suspend booking of appointments for stable patients catogorised as routine new cases from other Clusters, until further notice. Patients could make appointments with SOPCs in Clusters according to the residential addresses.