How to become a health care assistant
Official title: Health care assistants
Also called: Birth assistant (clinic or hospital), Nursing aide (clinic or hospital), Patient care assistant, Psychiatric aid
Health care assistants provide direct personal care and assistance with activities of daily living to patients and residents in a variety of health care settings such as hospitals, clinics and residential nursing care facilities. They generally work in implementation of established care plans and practices, and under the direct supervision of medical, nursing or other health professionals or associate professionals.
Main tasks
- Providing care, support and treatment to patients and residents of medical, rehabilitative and residential care facilities according to treatment plans established by medical, nursing and other health professionals
- Assisting patients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings
- Positioning, lifting and turning patients and transporting them in wheelchairs or on movable beds
- Maintaining patients’ environmental hygiene standards, such as cleaning patient rooms and changing bed linen
- Providing massage and other non-pharmacological pain relief measures, such as during pregnancy and labour
- Observing patients’ condition, responses and behaviour and reporting changes to a health professional
Ways in
- Qualifications Framework: Vocational Qualifications Pathway: Elderly Care Service. The Qualifications Framework publishes a Vocational Qualifications Pathway for the Elderly Care Service industry (安老服務業), showing QF-recognised qualifications by level: https://www.hkqf.gov.hk/ecs/en/vqp. Link between the industry and this job by Peernovo.
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Median pay: HK$16,500 a month
- About 732,700 people in 2025, and about 740,500 projected by 2028. (+1.1%)
- Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
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Questions people ask
How do I become a health care assistant?
Ways in include: Vocational Qualifications Pathway: Elderly Care Service.
Do you need a degree to become a health care assistant?
Usually not. Only 22% of people in this job hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Ways in include: Vocational Qualifications Pathway: Elderly Care Service.
Will AI change the work of a health care assistant?
Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- Census and Statistics Department (2021 Population Census): 2021 Population Census, Interactive Data Dissemination Service: working population by occupation (38 groups) and sex, age, education, income; median income and field of education (9 groups) (2021 Population Census), retrieved 4 October 2026
- Census and Statistics Department (General Household Survey): Median monthly employment earnings by occupation (9 groups), excluding foreign domestic helpers (Table 210-06317A); employed persons by occupation, age and sex (210-06307A) and by industry (210-06308A) (2025 annual (series to 2026-07)), retrieved 4 October 2026
- Census and Statistics Department (Annual Earnings and Hours Survey): Monthly and hourly wage percentiles by occupational group (5 groups) (Tables 220-23014, 220-23024, 220-23003) (2025 (May to June 2025), released 2026-03-23), retrieved 4 October 2026
- Labour and Welfare Bureau; tables published by C&SD: Mid-term Update of Manpower Projection to 2028: supplementary statistical tables (5 occupation groups, 17 selected industries) (2025 to 2028 (published 2026-09)), retrieved 4 October 2026
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026