Avalon Water Treatment is a renowned service provider to the water treatment industry and is recognised as a leading specialist in the area of Legionella compliance. We work across many industries and commercial institutions providing complete solutions to our customers in the key areas of Health and Safety, regulatory and legislative conformity.

legionnaires disease
The applicable document (HSC/HSE Document: ‘Legionnaires’ disease The control of Legionella bacteria in water systems : Approved Code of Practice & Guidance L8) is provided by the Health and Safety Commission and is in its 3rd edition. Commonly referred to as L8, it describes the requirements for compliance with statutory guidelines.

The code places specific statutory responsibilities on employers and others for:

identification and assessment of risk
Systems that are susceptible to colonisation by Legionella and that incorporate a potential means for creating and disseminating water aerosols should be identified and their risk assessed. Consideration should be given both to the routine operation or use of the system and to the likely effect of breakdown, abnormal operation or unusual circumstances.

When a reasonably foreseeable risk is identified the person on whom the statutory duty falls should appoint a person to take managerial responsibility and to provide supervision for the implementation of precautions.

preparation of a scheme for prevention or control
A written scheme should be prepared for preventing or controlling identified risk. It is necessary that persons who carry out the assessment and who draw up and implement measures should have the ability, experience, knowledge and training to allow them to carry out their tasks competently and safely. Where expertise on certain aspects of the risk or precautions is not available in-house, it should be drawn from external bodies such as consultants or Legionella specialists. The person given managerial responsibility must ensure, as far as possible, the competence of those carrying out the work on his behalf.

implementation and management of precautionspan
Responsibilities delegated to staff and lines of communication must be properly defined and clearly set out. Persons that are delegated tasks must be properly trained and competent. The effectiveness of the precautions must be monitored and staff with a role to play in taking precautions must be supervised.
Arrangements should be made to allow for staff being absent from duties so that precautions are still implemented.

Communications and management procedures are particularly important where several people are responsible for different aspects of the treatment or precautions. In these circumstances, responsibilities should be well defined in writing and understood by all concerned.

keeping of records
To ensure that precautions continue to be implemented and adequate information is available for checking as to what is done in practice; an updated record should be kept in a locally available logbook. Precautionary measures and treatments, monitoring results and remedial work should be logged and signed or initialled by the person who has carried out the work. Sufficient information should be recorded to show that measures have been carried out and monitored conscientiously.

service providers
It is sometimes the case that it is possible for site to carry out the works in-house. Where there may be no qualified risk assessor or external certification is required, consider the use of a service provider with a proven history of success in this critical area.

Be aware of your responsibilities – you can not pass those responsibilities on to your service provider.