The fight to reduce child swimming pool drowning’s in NSW moves online

June 23, 2013 - PRLog -- With the launch of the innovative “Swimming Pools Register”

Every year 60 children in NSW are admitted to hospital following a near-drowning experience in a swimming pool. Almost all cases could be prevented with safety standard pool fences. The challenge is identifying and rectifying deficiencies in pool barriers before a child’s life is lost.  

The NSW Government has recently concluded a two-year comprehensive review of swimming pools legislation. During this period the New South Wales Deputy State Coroner conducted a series of inquests into swimming pool deaths and made recommendations to strengthen the Swimming Pools Act.

This has resulted in the passing of the Swimming Pools (Amendment) Act 2012 (http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/maintop/view/inforce/act+77+2012+cd+0+N) which requires all home owners to register their pools online by 29 October 2013, or face paying a fine. The legislation requires the establishment of a statewide online register of all private swimming pools in New South Wales to enable pool owners to self-register free of charge and certify their pool complies with the relevant requirements. The online registration system is to go live on 29 April 2013 and can be viewed at: www.swimmingpoolregister.nsw.gov.au

The online Swimming Pool Register has been developed and delivered by PretaGov, an innovative Australian website Software as a Service solution. The online register presented a number of challenges, as the solution had to interface with legacy property title databases and had to ensure compliance with all aspects of the new laws. The extremely tight project time frame was met by the use of new and innovative open source and cloud based technologies that have revolutionised the speed to launch and also greatly reduced the cost of development and operation.

PretaGov is a content management system SaaS solution that delivers sizable economies of scale, across government. PretaGov is already being used by government clients such as the NSW State Transit Authority, Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Victoria State Emergency Services. PretaGov has offices in Australia and the UK.

For further information, please contact Virginia Choy on:

P: 02 8081 9072

E: virginia.choy@pretagov.com.au
W: www.pretagov.com.au