Earlier this year, Reading Borough Council was hit with a £100,000 fine, plus £20,000 in costs, for “systemic and continued failings” in one of its care homes, which led to the death of a pensioner from Legionnaires’ disease in 2012.

The size of this penalty wasn’t out of the ordinary. In 2012, for example, Basildon Hospital had been ordered to pay £350,000 in fines and costs. In 2015, a Newport-based company was hit with a £75,000 penalty for failing to maintain its cooling towers safely. And, in the same year, a firm in Somercotes, Derbyshire, was ordered to pay out £190,000 for the same reason.

More recently, security firm G4S Cash Solutions was fined a staggering £1.8 million this month for a lack of legionella control measures on a site in Harlow – even though it was never confirmed that a case of Legionnaires’ disease had been contracted on the site.

These cases are just the tip of an iceberg of prosecutions brought for failing to prevent the spread of legionella bacteria and Legionnaires’ disease.

However, you’ll have noticed that the penalties imposed were for different amounts. So how much can you expect to be fined if you don’t control the legionella risk in your water systems?

In short, there’s no hard and fast answer to this question. That’s because legionella is covered by a number of different laws and regulations, including:

• Health & Safety at Work etc Act, 1974 – covering risks from legionella that may arise from work activities.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, 1999.
• Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 – providing a framework of duties to assess, prevent and control the risk from bacteria suck as legionella.
• Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992 – making it a duty to notify the local authority of these installations and when they are no longer in use.

In addition, the Health and Safety Executive has published Legionnaires’ disease: The control of bacteria in water systems, which outlines the legal responsibilities of people in charge of premises and provides an approved code of practice for controlling legionella bacteria.

Any fine imposed for failing to control legionella thus depend on which legislation is used to bring a prosecution, and the level of the court imposing the penalty. As a guide, however, the following penalties are possible for breaching health and safety rules:

• Magistrates’ courts can impose fines of up to £20,000. Sheriff courts in Scotland can also impose a prison sentence of up to 12 months.
• Crown courts can impose unlimited fines and up to two years’ imprisonment.

In addition, if you are convicted of a health and safety offence, a court can disqualify you as a company director.

Worse still, if failure to control a legionella risk results in loss of life, the Crown Prosecution Service or the police can bring a prosecution under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.  Penalties under this legislation can result in unlimited fines of millions of pounds, remedial orders and publicity orders. A DIY discount warehouse in Stoke-on-Trent is currently facing corporate manslaughter charges for a hot tub display containing the same strain of legionella that killed three visitors. In other Health and Safety breach cases, the courts have proven they are unafraid of imposing fines that have subsequently put companies out of business.

In essence, if you fail to take steps to control legionella, you are very likely to receive a crippling fine or even a prison sentence. It’s simply not worth the risk, whether to other people’s health or to your finances and freedom.

So, if you’ve been putting off preventative legionella measures, now’s the time to act. The HSE recommends that your first step should be a risk assessment – and we’re happy to provide one for you, quickly and with minimum hassle. Contact us today to book yours.