The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department announced today that it will implement enhanced measures from May 19 to prevent the employment of unqualified life-saving attendants at private swimming pools, with a view to safeguarding the safety of swimming pool users.

Swimming pool licensees must comply with the Swimming Pools Regulation and licensing conditions, which include ensuring that sufficient qualified life-saving attendants are on duty when the pool is open. The new measures spell out the licensees’ responsibilities explicitly, step up inspections and penalties, and enhance collaboration with other departments and organisations.

Under the new penalty mechanism, if a licensee is found twice within a year to have insufficient qualified life-saving attendants on duty during opening hours, the department will consider suspending its licence for six months and requiring the licensee to report the situation to relevant parties, including the owners’ corporation. If three violations are recorded within a year, the licence may be cancelled and the licensee or related parties shall not be allowed to apply for a licence for the same location within 12 months.

To ensure that licensees fulfil their responsibilities, the department will require them to verify the identity documents of life-saving attendants before employment, and to keep copies of their Pool Lifeguard Awards and personal logbooks.

The department has also devised a standard template for logging life-saving attendants’ duty records. Licensees are required to record the data as per the prescribed format, and the records have to be verified and signed by inspecting staff assigned by the licensees and by attendants themselves. Departmental officers will check the records as necessary and will follow up on any violations.

The department added that in addition to checking and verifying the qualifications of life-saving attendants on duty during monthly inspections, the frequency of spot checks during the peak swimming season in July and August will be increased. In cases where insufficient qualified life-saving attendants are on duty, it will take immediate actions, including requiring the licensee to close the pool until sufficient qualified life-saving attendants can be present. It may also will issue a warning or initiate prosecution.

The department has issued letters to licensees of all private swimming pools in the city, reminding them to support and comply with the new measures. It has also collaborated with the Property Management Services Authority, requiring property management companies to play a robust gatekeeping role in the recruitment of life-saving attendants.

Separately, the Hong Kong China Life Saving Society is to make the list of qualified life-saving attendants public. The department says it believes that this will help swimming pool licensees verify life-saving attendants’ qualifications.