Legionella prevention and control should be a major consideration for everyone involved in the design, installation and routine maintenance or domestic buildings; neglected duties can lead to criminal prosecutions in 'worst case' scenarios. Guidance from the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) emphasises the importance of 'duty holders,' but who are they and what are their responsibilities?
Across the lifetime of a building, responsibility for water hygiene spans a whole range of sectors, relying on architects, design engineers, specifiers and installers pulling together to create a water system that complies with legionella control guidelines.
The guidance defining specific responsibilities is HSE's Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) L8, Legionnaires' disease: The control of bacteria in water systems .
It is important that plumbing and heating engineers know this legislation to make sure that they understand their legal responsibilities.
The law makes it very clear that if you are responsible for the control of a building, you have a duty of care towards the occupants.
According to HSE, 'duty holders', or those responsible for the control of legionella bacteria in water systems, must understand how to assess and identify legionella risk themselves, or appoint somebody competent to do this, called the 'responsible person.'
This 'responsible person' can be a member of staff or an external organisation, whose duties include the preparation of a written legionella control scheme, managing and monitoring legionella precautions, appropriate record keeping and the identification and assessment of all sources of legionella risk, carried out in accordance with BS8580:2010.
There should be thorough risk assessments in place. Risk assessments should ask the following questions:
- Is water stored or re-circulated in the system?
- Is water temperature between 20 and 45oc?
- Are there any deposits that could support bacterial growth?
- Is it possible for water droplets to be produced and, if so, can they be dispersed?
- Is it likely that end users could be exposed to contaminated water droplets?
It is recommended that the risk assessment is reviewed 'regularly'. The risk assessment will dictate how regularly it will be reviewed, but here are some things that may indicate a review is necessary.
- When there is a change to water system
- A change of use of the building
- New information available about risks or control measures
- Checks indicating control measures are not effective
- Staff changes
- A case of legionnaires' disease
It is important that you remain up to date with latest developments and available training.
The details within this article featured in HVP Magazine – May 2017: Water Treatment – Fighting Legionella which was written by Steven Booth.
