Legionella risk assessment
Current regulations require the duty holder to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks from any work liable to expose employees to any substance hazardous to health before that work is carried out. Employers are also required to assess the risks to non-employees who may be affected by the exposure. They are also required to regularly review the risk assessment and make any necessary changes as a result of the review.
The risk assessment should include:
- Management responsibilities, including the name of the competent person and a description of your system
- Competence and training of key personnel
- Any identified potential risk sources, e.g. water storage tanks
- Any means of preventing the risk or controls in place to control risks
- Monitoring, inspection and maintenance procedures
- Records of the monitoring results and inspection checks carried out
- Arrangements to review the risk assessment regularly, particularly when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid.
If it is concluded that there is no reasonably foreseeable risk or the legionella risks are low and are being properly managed to comply with the law, your assessment is complete.
You do not need to take any further action at this stage, but any existing controls must be maintained and the assessment reviewed regularly in case anything changes or is added to your water system.