Waiting Time for New Case Booking at
Psychiatry 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 July 2025 - 30 June 2026), there were 53,664 new case bookings in Psychiatry 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
2,142
4%
Median
Less than 1 week
1 week
Less than 1 week
1 week
Less than 1 week
1 week
1 week
Semi-urgent Case
9,342
17%
Median
3
weeks
3
weeks
3
weeks
3
weeks
2
weeks
3
weeks
2
weeks
Stable Case
42,169
79%
Median
27
weeks
46
weeks
25
weeks
41
weeks
19
weeks
69
weeks
46
weeks
Longest(1)
69
weeks
84
weeks
74
weeks
85
weeks
84
weeks
104
weeks
84
weeks

(For reference only)
Date of Next Update: 30 October 2026

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) The information on this page is based on the old clustering arrangement. The Hong Kong East Cluster and the Hong Kong West Cluster have officially been integrated to establish the Hong Kong Island Cluster from 1 April 2026. The information will be updated in due course.