The city already faces a scarcity of spaces at care homes for the elderly, with 22,439 people waiting for a place in subsidised facilities at the end of last month and an average waiting time of seven months to 3½ years.

“Elderly people are our top priority, as Hong Kong has been facing challenges from the ageing population,” Sun said, adding that more had to be done to meet the rising demand for such care services.

Noting that many Hongkongers were willing to retire in mainland China, he said he was looking at ways to enable more to do so, including those who wished to go to care homes there.

One way was to allow local operators of subsidised care homes to open more facilities in mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area, an ambitious initiative by Beijing which connects Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province.

Since 2014, the Hong Kong government’s residential care services scheme in Guangdong has provided an option for elderly people on the waiting list to consider moving to care homes across the border operated by two NGOs from the city.

Sun said the government also aimed to improve services for the elderly in the city, which had 796 care homes housing about 55,700 people, according to official statistics.

He revealed that the government had already identified 10,000 additional residential care places for the elderly – about 6,200 subsidised and 3,800 non-subsidised – but did not say when they would be available.

Acknowledging the long queue for subsidised residential care, he said the two major problems were supply and manpower shortages.

He said the government had already told developers to reserve 5 per cent of the gross floor area of public housing projects for welfare purposes including care homes for the elderly. It had also made it a condition of land sales for developers to build welfare facilities.

As for the severe shortage of carers and nurses, the government subsidised 200 student nurses at Metropolitan University every year and his bureau would discuss with the Nursing Council to see if the number could be raised.

While the authorities prioritised local talent for the sector, he said they would also consider bringing in workers from the mainland and elsewhere to boost manpower.

Sun emphasised that Hong Kong’s focus on care for the elderly was still “ageing in place” – enabling people to grow old in their own homes and communities, with residential care being the last resort for the frail.

Given Hong Kong’s scarcity of care home places, many elderly people have moved into mainland facilities with bigger rooms, shorter waiting times, and lower living costs.

Kenneth Chan Chi-yuk, chairman of the Elderly Services Association of Hong Kong, said the minister’s proposal to have more elderly homes across the border could meet the demand from about 100,000 Hongkongers aged 65 and above already living in the mainland cities in the bay area.

“Retiring across the border is the trend,” he said.

Chan said the rooms in many mainland care homes were much larger than those in Hong Kong, and some were “like hotels”.

He said many Hong Kong operators would seize the opportunity to run homes on the mainland, where there was more land and manpower than back in the city.

But he added that medical care support for Hongkongers across the border needed to be improved so that they would not have to return to the city for subsidised services.

Social welfare legislator Tik Chi-yuen also welcomed the minister’s proposal, calling it “a step in the right direction” but he said homes on the mainland should meet Hong Kong service standards to gain the confidence of residents.

He suggested authorities also allow private operators to provide non-subsidised care homes with higher-quality services across the border for those who could afford it.

Welcoming the news that the government had identified 10,000 additional residential care places in Hong Kong, Tik said they should be available within three years to meet demand and the authorities needed a longer-term plan for providing more.

During the interview, Sun also touched on another priority for his ministry, improving the welfare of children, especially protecting them from abuse.

Legislation making it mandatory to report cases of suspected child abuse would be submitted to the Legislative Council next year, he said.

Following reports last December of child abuse at the Children’s Residential Home run by the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, 34 employees were arrested for allegedly abusing 40 youngsters.

In response, the government set up a committee in April to review the city’s residential childcare services. Its report of the first-phase review recommended 30 measures, including strengthening frontline manpower, tightening supervision of childcare workers, offering professional training to staff and conducting more checks.

Conceding that the previous supervisory mechanism was not rigorous enough, Sun pledged that more would be done to closely monitor children’s physical and emotional conditions, examine their medical records and engage frontline staff and parents.

“We hope comprehensive supervision will prevent similar incidents from happening again,” he said.