XN000022-1995-10-18 — Page 74

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(a) of the progress regarding the implementation of legislation governing residential homes for elderly people in the territories; whether any problems have been encountered, and if so, what are these problems; and

(b) whether, arising from the case of an outbreak of fire in a private home for elderly people in North Point, there is any intention on the part of the Government to amend the safety aspects of the relevant legislation to protect the interests of elderly people residing in these privately run homes?

Reply:

The reply is as follows:

(a) The Residential Care Homes (Elderly Persons) Ordinance and Regulation came into effect on 1 April 1995 (except for Section 6 of the Ordinance). Relevant application forms and other documentation were then distributed to the operators of all residential care homes for the elderly. As at 17 October 1995, a total of 259 applications (from 44% of the total number of known residential homes) had been received of which, 185 came from private homes, 62 from subvented homes and 12 from self-financing non-profit-making homes.

Four teams of inspectors covering social work, building safety, fire safety and health, have started inspection visits to residential care homes to vet their applications for licences or certificates of exemption. We expect the first batch of licences and certificates to be issued at the end of this month.

We have encountered some problems at this early stage of implementing the legislation. For example, some residential care homes have been found to be operating out of non-domestic premises. This is not strictly in accordance with planning and building requirements, but Social Welfare and Buildings Departments have agreed that a flexible approach should be adopted in such cases provided that fire precaution measures are up to standard and the homes do not have any unauthorised building works. Private homes which were found to have serious safety problems have, on the advice of our inspectors, either already been reprovisioned elsewhere or have had the necessary remedial changes carried out to make them acceptable.