(a)

formulate a comprehensive and long-term policy on mental health, so as to set a clear direction for the prevention, early detection, treatment, rehabilitation, long-term care and public education of mental illness;

(b)

allocate more resources to train and recruit psychiatric healthcare and rehabilitation professionals and ancillary personnel, including doctors, social workers, nurses, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists and physiotherapists, etc, to provide comprehensive services to people with mental illness and people recovering from mental illness;

(c)

clearly position psychiatric services in the public sector so that resources are effectively utilized to treat people whose mental illness is more severe, provide the grassroots with appropriate treatment and train medical and nursing staff at all levels to serve the community, and resolve the problems in the distribution of resources and facilities among the clusters so as to enhance effectiveness of the services;

(d)

suspend the reduction of psychiatric beds and re-introduce evening consultation services in order to provide appropriate services to people recovering from mental illness who have to work in the daytime;

(e)

strengthen training on professional knowledge on psychiatry for healthcare personnel in family medicine and enhance the collaboration between family medicine and psychiatric services, so that family doctors can diagnose and treat various types of mental illness at an early stage and make timely referral of people with severe mental illness to psychiatric units for follow-up;

(f)

allocate more resources for pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments so that people with mental illness can receive the most suitable treatment for their illness;

(g)

further develop the community medical and rehabilitation services to cater for the needs of people with mental illness and people recovering from mental illness, reinforce the collaboration of these two types of services, and consolidate the existing services, with a view to strengthening the support for people recovering from mental illness and their families;

(h)

assign case managers on a long term basis to closely follow up cases, so that patients can receive appropriate services and support during various stages of rehabilitation;

(i)

establish additional mental health centres in the community to provide integrated services to people with mental illness and people recovering from mental illness;

(j)

increase subvented places to accommodate the needy people with mental illness who are discharged from hospitals, and strengthen the regulation of the quality of self-financing hostels;

(k)

encourage the private and public sectors to employ people with disabilities, including people recovering from mental illness, and encourage the participation of the private sector by means of tax concession etc; and

(l)

pro-actively promote public education and volunteer work on mental health, eliminate discrimination against people with mental illness and people recovering from mental illness in the community, so that people with mental illness will be more active in receiving medical treatment and people recovering from mental illness can reintegrate into the society more smoothly.