If you are responsible for premises that have water systems, HSE regulations define you as a duty holder.
Whether you’re a private sector landlord, business owner or facilities management professional, you have five key tasks to complete to comply with your legal duties around legionella:
- Identify and assess sources of risk;
- Prepare, if appropriate, a written scheme for preventing or controlling the risk;
- Implement, manage and monitor precautions taken to control legionella;
- Keep records of all precautions taken, including risk assessments, their findings and the results of all inspections and tests;
- Appoint a ‘competent person’ with sufficient authority and knowledge of any water installation to help take measures needed to comply with the law.
In a nutshell, a duty holder is the person with whom – in the eyes of the law – the buck stops. While this person may sometimes also be the ‘competent person’ tasked with making risk assessments and introducing measures to control risk, in practice they rarely are.
Instead, the duty holder usually takes overall responsibility for controlling the risk of legionella, and will appoint an internal or external ‘competent person’ to help them achieve this goal.
Having a duty holder is not optional. If a building is a workplace, the regulations stipulate that there must be a duty holder. Also, if you have a cooling tower or evaporative condenser on site, you must inform your local authority in writing. You must also tell them if any of these devices are no longer in use.
Additionally, if a case of legionellosis occurs in an employee who has worked with cooling towers or hot water systems that are likely to be contaminated, you are legally obliged to report this under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurences Regulations (RIDDOR).
Landlords as duty holders
It’s also worth noting that in 2014, the HSE’s Approved Code of Practice defined private landlords and lettings agents as duty holders. While water systems in domestic properties are rarely very risky, as a duty holder you still need to comply with the rules to contain the risk of legionella.
So, whether you are in charge of many large properties or a single small one, remember that as a duty holder you are responsible for taking precautions against legionella. To help you in this role, download our free legionella compliance checklist – it’ll help you make sure you don’t fall foul of the law or, worse, inadvertently contribute to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
