3. Managing the risk
As an employer, or person in control of premises, you must appoint someone competent to help you meet your health and safety duties and to take responsibility for controlling any identified risk from exposure to legionella bacteria.
A competent person, often known as the responsible person, is someone with sufficient authority, competence, necessary skills, knowledge of the system, and experience. The appointed responsible person could be one, or a combination of:
- yourself
- one or more workers
- someone from outside your business
If there are several people responsible for managing risks, for example because of shift-work patterns, you must make sure everyone knows what they are responsible for and how they fit into the overall risk management of the system.
Using contractors to carry out water treatment
If you decide to employ contractors to carry out water treatment or other work, it is still the responsibility of the competent person to ensure the treatment is carried out to the required standards.
Before you employ a contractor, you should be satisfied they can do the work you want to the standard you require.
There are a number of external schemes to help you with this, for example, A Code of Conduct for service providers.
The British Standards Institute have published a standard for legionella risk assessment.