Dr. LAU Pui Yan, FloraFloraDr. LAU Pui Yan2026-07-062026-07-062025Lau, P. Y. (5 Jul 2025). Filling in the service gap of primary healthcare: Towards a culturally competent environment for ethnic minority population in Hong Kong. CPCE Health Conference 2025, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/27997Cultural competence in the context of healthcare refers to the awareness, knowledge, understanding, sensitivity and skills needed to effectively conduct and complete professional activities with people of diverse cultural backgrounds and affiliations. Although there has been substantial attempt to implement culturally competent healthcare policies in the developed world, the idea of cultural competence is encountering the following challenges: first, the best way to implement cultural competence into the healthcare system remains a point for discussion amongst experts. Second, many societies have tackled this cultural competence issue with a ‘top-down’ approach, i.e. from a policy making point of view rather than a service user’s one and ignore the voice of the minority population. Third, the actual outcome of these measures to relevant users is yet to be identified.<br> In Hong Kong, at the Legislative Council level, there have been discussions as to ethnic minorities and their access to healthcare. Specific to cultural competence, measures such as compulsory cultural sensitivity training in staff orientation for frontline healthcare workers, enhancing collection of data on ethnic minorities’ health status, and strengthening and promoting the interpretation services provided at hospital have been recommended and implemented in recent decade (Health in Action, 2017).<br> This presentation aims to examine the practices and insufficiencies of cultural competence from a holistic perspective based on a recent project involving the ethnic minority cancer patients. The presenter completed 38 in-depth interviews with ethnic minority cancer patients/ survivors (21), caregivers (3) and healthcare practitioners (14) including medical doctors, nurses, social workers and grassroot NGO practitioners between April 2022 and October 2023. Through an evaluation of the healthcare measures from the perspective of various stakeholders, this presentation illustrates what difficulties ethnic minorities face in navigating the healthcare system. It also demonstrates which areas are most important and effective in helping them, whether such assistance comes from a top-down policy level, or a bottom-up grassroots approach.<br> Although cultural competence is often written off as one of the professional practices of human services, the findings indicate that it very much exists in Hong Kong’s healthcare system. NGOs and ethnic minority patients are also very much alive to these issues and understand that they must navigate their way through it in order to obtain the treatment they need and answers to their medical questions. Based on the user’s perspectives, cultural competence needs to be implemented at different levels of society: from the macro policy level to the micro frontline level. Last but not least, cultural competence is not the sole practice of human services, it should be embraced by everyone living in the same society.enConference Paper