The Property Management Services Authority Welcomes Food and Environmental Hygiene Department’s Strengthened Measures to Safeguard Swimming Pool Users

The Property Management Services Authority (PMSA) welcomes the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD)’s announcements to take measures starting this year’s swimming season to strengthen prevention of and combat against suspected violations involving private property swimming pools engaging unqualified life-saving attendants. These steps aim to protect the safety of swimming pool users.

The FEHD measures concerned include:

Explicitly requiring licensees of private swimming pools (licensees) to verify the identity document, Pool Lifeguard Award (PLA) and personal logbook before engaging life-saving attendants and keep copy of the documents properly;
Establishing a standard template for licensees to record the information shown on the identity document and PLA of the life-saving attendants on duty;
Stepping up inspections, including checking the identity documents of each life-saving attendant on duty during monthly surprise inspections to verify their identity;
Coordinating with the Hong Kong China Life Saving Society to confirm the validity of PLAs and ensure the life-saving attendants on duty possess valid qualifications;
In addition to routine inspections, the FEHD will flexibly deploy its manpower resources and analyse complaint cases to draw up a target list of private swimming pools, and the inspections of which will be stepped up during July and August to specifically focus on lifeguard qualification. In case of insufficient qualified life-saving attendants on duty, FEHD will take immediate follow-up actions, including requiring the licensee to immediately close the swimming pool until sufficient qualified life-saving attendants attend at the pool, and issuing warning or instituting prosecution against the licensee. The FEHD will consider cancelling the licences of swimming pools with repeated contraventions. Cases involving the use of false documents or documents relating to other persons will be reported to the Police.

Dr James Wong, Chairperson of the PMSA said, “Many private residential properties in Hong Kong provide swimming pool facilities for the use of owners and tenants. In general, the swimming pool licence will be held by the respective property management (PM) company or the owners’ corporation. As swimming pools are common facilities of properties, according to the deed of mutual covenant of the properties, owners are responsible to repair and manage such facilities, and licensed PM company appointed by the owner / owners’ organisation of a property to provide PM services has to, whether engaging life-saving attendants by themselves or through swimming pool operator, inspect and ensure that the life-saving attendants possess relevant lifesaving qualifications.”

Dr Wong added, “In order to enhance safety of swimming pool facilities in properties and noting recent cases whereby life-saving attendants on duty at swimming pools in private properties were suspected to be unqualified, the PMSA has begun checking since last December if licensed PM companies managing swimming pool have verified the identity and qualification of the life-saving attendants on duty in accordance with the set procedures, and if sufficient qualified life-saving attendants are on duty and all necessary requirements have been met when inspecting properties with swimming pools under the PM industry licensing regime. As of today, the PMSA has inspected nearly 70 properties with swimming pool facilities and confirmed that the respective PM companies have acted in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.”

Dr Wong emphasised, “The PMSA will tie in with the FEHD measures and jointly step up publicity work before the swimming season this year, including issuing letters to PM companies calling for measures to prevent the engagement of unqualified life-saving attendants, and establishing communication mechanism with the FEHD in respect of violation cases for both parties to take follow-up actions, in accordance with their respective authorities, against the licensees and PM companies, thereby enhancing protection for swimming pool users.”

According to the Swimming Pools Regulations (Cap. 132CA) and relevant licensing conditions, licensees must arrange a sufficient number of qualified life-saving attendants to be on duty during the opening hours of the pools. The qualifications of life-saving attendants are assessed by the Hong Kong China Life Saving Society, which issues PLAs featuring the life-saving attendants’ name and photograph to those who qualify. At present, there are about 1,400 licensed private swimming pools across the territory. The FEHD has required licensees to display at a conspicuous location of pool entrance the required number of life-saving attendants during the opening hours of swimming pool, as well as recent photographs, names and PLA numbers of the life-saving attendants on duty. Licensees are also required to keep duty logs of life-saving attendants for at least 90 days for inspection by the FEHD.

Licensed PM companies have to act in accordance with the relevant Codes of Conduct issued by the PMSA pursuant to the Property Management Services Ordinance (Cap. 626) when managing swimming pool facilities, including “General Code of Conduct”, “Carrying out Procurement for Clients and Prevention of Bid-rigging”, “Handling Outsourced Property Management Services” and “Handling Emergencies”, and with reference to the various guidelines stipulated in the relevant Best Practice Guides. The aforementioned Codes and Guides can be downloaded from the PMSA webpage (https://www.pmsa.org.hk/en/regulatory-framework/codes-of-conduct).

The PMSA had organised a Continuing Professional Development seminar jointly with the Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies, the Hong Kong China Life Saving Society and the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education of the Vocational Training Council last December whereby over 2,000 members of the PM industry attended physically and online to examine from different perspectives ways to enhance safety of swimming pool facilities in properties.

Ends/Thursday, 6 March, 2025
Issued at HKT 14:00
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