DIY Legionella Risk Assessment Reports for Just £9

It really worries me that this type of ra is being promoted as a solution for legionella control.
It is a short cut that will become a paper filling exercise with no monitoring of actions taken.
Legionella risk assessment must be carried out by a COMPETENT person. Having a set of instructions from a template does not give competency.
I have not completed the form so I am not sure if the document delivers a risk matrix or action plan ?

First very brief thoughts
1. The document does not explain or consider the growth pattern of the bacteria
2. All instruments used to monitor water installations should be calibrated (12 monthly)and have records available.
3. A written system of control should be in place (including identifiying responsibilities and competencies) - the ra is only part of that.

I could go on but remember risk control is achieved by constant monitoring auditing and review. Whilst I applaud an initiative to increase the safeguarding of property occupiers. I think there are to many holes in this document.

Allan,

Thank you for your comments. The process has been provided by legionella risk assessors and is a similar report to those being provided nationwide to letting agents and landlords.

The document has been prepared using the HSE guidelines and following the notes set out in the House of Commons note of the 1st October.

The requirement is for a simple legionella risk assessment on domestic rental properties.

This is what is provided on completion of the process.

Reply to the comment left by "Allan Mazey" at "07/10/2015 - 11:49":

i think what you are proposing is not proportional to the minute risk involved.

I forgot to add that the finished report has been checked and passed by the training company and accreditation body.

As a pragmatic engineer, I really hate this nonsense because it is not supported by facts. Each year only about 185 people catch and have a bout of Legionnaire Disease in the UK. No deaths, meanwhile each year, 3 people die from Bee stings and 9 drown in their baths. Perhaps landlords should provide all incoming tenants with a local “Bee activity” report, from an expert, because it is statistically a bigger risk to them being killed than Legionnaires Disease.

In one year your chances of you contracting Legionnaires Disease is about 380,000 to 1. To give that perspective. The average person, of average age, living an average life in the UK, has a 25,000 to 1 chance of dying in any given year. So you are 15 times more likely to die of natural causes in any given year, than catch a bout of Legionnaires Disease.

One wonders if the real logic behind this is just to burden Landlords with as much total nonsense forms, regulations and experts, so as to make us give up being Landlords and throw our hand in. What will the next regulation be, Hmmm let me see if I can think of one. Got it. You need a certificate, produced by an expert, that your gutters have the correct incline, otherwise there is the potential for standing water and because bird droppings have been know to spread disease, it a risk to the tenants. Anyway that’s what Bob down the pub says and he should know. Who needs the support of logic, facts and statistics when Landlord beating seems to be the target???

Statistics provide by a 5 minute Google search

Hi Graham,

Not sure about your statistics on deaths. I can point you to a news article in Radstock where an elderly chap died of legionella caught in his flat this year.

it happens, yes it is rare, but it does happen.

It is best to do the assessment and stay legal, especially for under £10.

Hi Ralph. The law of probability says, “If you do anything often enough, every eventallity will happen”. Flip a coin 1,000 times and it will end up 50/50 heads or tails. Do it 100Million times and one time it will land on its edge. That is why one person wins a 14 million to 1 Lottery. It is very rare to have a reaction to a Bee sting and yet 3 people die a year in the UK. Bruce Lee had a fatal reaction to a prescription pain killer. It is so rare that I don’t think that drug has killed anyone else since and is still prescribed.

Does the world ban the drug because one person died from it? No. The law of probability says, if you give it to enough people, someone will die. Some people die from peanuts! We live with that risk.

You can’t argue for the viability of a rule based on extremely rare occurrences, because the law of proberblity says, do it often enough and there will always be that rare occurrence. Should we close all roller coasters following the Alton Towers accident, because the law of probability says, if you have 100’s of millions of rides you will have an accident. So it is 100% certain to happen again somewhere in the world, in the future.

If we are going to throw logic and reason out the window then to protect my tenants from a statically greater threat to their lives than Legionnaires, that being the common bee, I should get a report from a bee expert, I guess he would need to be trained and accredit by a “Association”. The risk of being stung report could cost £10. It could take into account the nearby plants that attract bees ect ect. It could offer useful advice to tenants like “Jam attracts bees”

Really don't know what to say about that post Graham. lol.

I am not going to argue about the viability of the rule. However, the fact is the rule is there and we have to do the assessment.

Reply to the comment left by "Graham Chilvers" at "07/10/2015 - 16:22":

Graham, I am pretty sure that you are taking the proverbial but I will 'bite'

All Drugs have a warning about side effects -- so someone has done a risk assessment.

I can guarantee that a risk assessment was in place before the Alton Towers accident and that it has now been revised following the accident

We don't provide bees or peanuts for our tenants but we sure as heck are providing them with water systems.

Ralph, it will be interesting to see what LD risk assessment looks like. Fire Assessment forms are free to download and you can fill your own in. I have done this and they have been accepted by the Housing Standards Department. I fail at this point to see, given time, be any different for LD. Determaning that my property doesn’t meet the requirements for breeding LD, shouldn’t be rocket science.