Legionella and water safety
The risk assessment is the easy part. What gets missed is the monitoring it asks for — the monthly temperatures, the weekly flushing of the outlet nobody uses, the tank inspection.
What the law requires
Duties come from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, with the Approved Code of Practice L8 and the guidance in HSG274 setting out what control of legionella bacteria in water systems means in practice: identify and assess the risk, appoint a responsible person, prepare a written scheme of control, implement and manage it, and keep records. An ACOP has a particular status — depart from it and you must be able to show you achieved the same outcome another way.
Legislation referred to on this page: Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 · Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 · Approved Code of Practice L8 · HSG274. Named so you can read the source. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and whether a duty applies to your organisation is a question for you and your adviser.
Who it applies to
- Employers and people in control of premises with a water system that could create a breathable aerosol — which is most buildings, not only ones with cooling towers.
- Landlords, for the water systems in properties they let.
- Small, simple systems still need the risk assessed; what changes is the scale of the scheme of control, not whether one is needed.
What you have to be able to show
The list an inspector, insurer or auditor actually works through.
- The water risk assessment, current and reflecting the system as it is now.
- Who the appointed responsible person is.
- The written scheme of control.
- Monitoring records: temperatures, flushing of little-used outlets, tank and calorifier inspections.
- What happened when a reading was out of range.
How DutyHub records it
DutyHub does not carry out any of the work below. It records who did, when, and what they found.
The assessment and the scheme together
Both are controlled documents with approvers and review dates, and the register reads the approved version rather than the latest upload.
Monitoring as recurring checks
Temperature and flushing rounds are scheduled checks with QR labels at the outlet. A reading is captured with the check, not typed up later.
Out-of-range raises an action
A failed reading is not a note in a log. It opens an action, and the scheme stays amber until somebody closes it.
Start with what applies to you
Add your premises and answer a short set of questions about them. DutyHub works out which duties land on which building, and shows you the gaps before anybody else finds them.
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