Retirement Villages

What keeps coming up in Poolsafe inspections?

Supervision Ratios

Many facilities did not have supervision ratios included in their NOPS. This criteria was brought in in 2020.

In order to determine their supervision ratios facilities will need to go through a risk assessment process and consider factors such as pool design, staffing numbers, activities, and their community.

As a guide some facilities are using the ECE off site ratio.

If facilities decide that they do not need to establish ratio’s this needs to be stated in their NOPs along with the rationale behind their decision.

More and more facilities are moving to online processes and documentation. This can mean facilities are not able to upload the required documentation on the Poolsafe IMS or that hard copies are not available for the Poolsafe assessor on site.

Poolsafe assessors require evidence to be provided and this can be as simple as showing them onsite the online files. This is acceptable under Poolsafe therefore someone needs to be available at the time of the visit to allow the assessor access to view any online processes or documentation.

In addition, if documents such as NOPS, EAPS and PRMPs are being kept online the lifeguards need to be aware of how they can access them. Evidence of this also needs to be provided.

As a facility you will need to consider how staff sign that they have attended and understood regular training sessions if this is reported online.

Under the terms and conditions of Poolsafe facilities there is a requirement to report notifiable incidents to the Recreation Aotearoa Aquatics Programme Manager within 24 hours. This should then be followed by a copy of the incident report as and when it is produced.

These reports are kept on file and the information is used to identify trends or gaps and inform changes to the Poolsafe criteria if required. Outcomes of incidents and changes made to operating procedures are also shared with industry.

An annual incident review is sent out every year for facilities to complete. Once collated this information gives us a picture of the amount of people using our facilities and the numbers and types of incidents occurring. These figures are also shared with WSNZ.