The Hospital Authority on Wednesday said it will step up recruitment and maintenance efforts following a series of mishaps this year, including surgical lights and chunks of concrete falling from ceilings.

This came as a committee set up to review the state of public hospitals called on the authority to hire more medical engineers to ensure that contractors stay up-to-date with their maintenance duties.

Wan Man-yee, who chairs the committee, said more needs to be done to address ageing buildings and a shortage of maintenance staff.

The authority's chief executive Tony Ko accepted the recommendation – one of 23 put forward by the committee.

“At some stage we probably still need to have our contractors to do some of the work for us, but we hope that we can in the shortest period of time... recruit more people so that we can take up more responsibility and more supervision work as recommended by the review committee,” he said.

Ko revealed that legal action will be taken against the contractor responsible for maintaining operating theatre lights which came crashing down at United Christian Hospital in February.

He also said the authority is setting up committees at public hospitals to ensure the safety of patients and staff.

“If we find out that there are similar problems in different hospitals, then we need a centralised coordinated initiative. We can do it together both at the head office and the local level.”