He added that he believed Yan Oi Tong had provided training in line with guidelines. But he declined to comment further because of the police investigation.

Hong Kong had more than 1,700 community nannies recruited under the programme by June last year.

They are paid HK$25 (US$3.20) an hour. They cared for more than 10,000 children under the age of nine in 2022-23.

The government in the last policy address pledged to increase payment to HK$40 per hour for people who cared for children aged three to nine, and to HK$60 to those caring for toddlers aged below three, or with special educational needs.

The increases are part of a policy package to reverse the city’s declining birth rate, which plunged to a record low in 2022.

But the Post found training and admission requirements of NGOs varied.

The training packages given to babysitters ranged from two to eight hours.

Most NGOs prefer previous childcare experience in childcare, but it is not an absolute requirement. Some also ask whether applicants have criminal records.

The police inquiry was sparked on Friday after staff at Tuen Mun Hospital found a blood clot on the baby girl’s brain.

Early investigations suggested that the baby had been subjected to abuse, and the babysitter was arrested.

A police source told the Post that the baby’s parents had asked Yan Oi Tong for a babysitter earlier this month after the family’s domestic helper went on leave.

The baby’s father left the child in the babysitter’s care at 9.30am on Thursday.

He got a call at 2pm that day from Yan Oi Tong staff, who told him that the baby had suffered a spasm after having a bath.

The source said the baby was rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital after the parents arrived at the babysitter’s home at around 3.30pm and found the child unconscious.

The child’s left eye was swollen and a blood clot was found on her brain. She needed an operation and is being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Doctors reported the case to the police as the injuries were suspicious.

The Social Welfare Department said the arrested babysitter was a “community nanny” with the government’s neighbourhood support child care project, which launched in 2011.

The department said the woman, who has a two-year-old son, had recently completed training and started work this month. The injured infant was the first child to come under her care.

The government has commissioned 18 NGOs to operate the scheme in the city’s 18 districts.

Yan Oi Tong was responsible for the recruitment, assessment, screening and training of the babysitters, as well as service arrangements in Tuen Mun district.

The NGO on Sunday said it would not comment on the alleged incident because of the police investigation.

“We will do our best to cooperate with the investigation and extend our heartfelt condolences to the family,” a spokesman for the NGO said. “We wish the child a speedy recovery.”

Bill Tang Ka-piu, a lawmaker and member of the welfare services panel, said he was worried the incident could harm the reputation of the community nanny programme, where most babysitters were committed to providing a good and safe service.

“As the government increases the incentive payment, the public will have a higher expectation of the quality of babysitters,” he added. “It is to the benefit of no one when people lose confidence in the scheme, considering the high demand for such services.”

Tang appealed to the government to draw up a more comprehensive training framework to address the needs of children at different stages of development and to maintain public confidence in the scheme.

Tik Chi-yuen, a welfare sector lawmaker, said training for community carers varied from one organisation to another because no standard guidelines were provided by the Social Welfare Department when the service was launched.

“Admittedly, the training now given to the community babysitters is very poor – some organisations only offered a few hours’ workshop and called it a training,” he said.

He appealed to the department to establish thorough guidelines on professional training for participants with no previous experience of childcare and for the establishment of a monitoring system for partner organisations.

Tik suggested the organisations should carry out a visit to the potential carers’ home before they were matched with a family.

“The lesson learned here is that the authority should review children’s services in the community as a whole,” he said.

Doreen Kong Yuk-foon, the deputy chairman of the welfare service panel, said some improvements could be made in the short-term, such as a requirement for all service providers to include a first aid course in their training programmes.