Automated hand detection is useful for applications requiring reliable hand posture and hand gesture processing. Such applications include human-computer/human-robot interfaces for rehabilitation, serious games, or non-invasive medical diagnosis. Hence, in this paper, we focus on the design and development of a robust and fast hand detection and tracking (HD) system. The design of our HD system involved the study of the human skin colour and people's foreground properties, in order to merge these information for an efficient hand detection and tracking. Experiments have been carried out in real-world environment and have demonstrated the excellent performance of our HD system.