How Legionella Control Fits Together
The whole control cycle on one page, and how the rest of the course follows it.
11 min
Activities: 0 of 2
Legionella control is not one task. It is a cycle of connected tasks, and a gap in any one of them lets the risk back in. A facilities team can take perfect temperature readings and still fail, because nobody acted on the readings. A team can hold a fine risk assessment and still fail, because the building changed and the assessment did not.
In this course you work through the cycle in the order a competent person meets it in real work. First you learn how water systems are built and how they fail. Then you look at the legal duties and the risk assessment. Then you study the control scheme, water treatment and the higher-risk systems. After that come records, audit and special situations. Finally you apply all of it to realistic building cases.
The course is at intermediate level. You are expected to do more than name the parts. You should be able to choose between control options, diagnose why a result is out of range, and adapt the scheme when the building changes.
The control cycle
- 1
1
Know the system
Survey the building and draw an accurate schematic. You cannot control what you cannot see.
- 2
2
Assess the risk
A competent assessor identifies where bacteria can grow and who could breathe in aerosol.
- 3
3
Write the scheme
The written scheme of control sets the tasks, frequencies, limits and owners.
- 4
4
Carry out and record
Monitoring, flushing, cleaning and treatment happen as planned, and each result is recorded.
- 5
5
Act on results
Every out-of-range result leads to an investigation, a correction and a re-test.
- 6
6
Review and audit
Check that the work was really done, and review the assessment when anything changes.
Who this course is for
The course suits facilities managers, building managers, maintenance supervisors, appointed responsible persons and their deputies. It also suits people who manage a water treatment contractor and need to check that contractor's work.
Consider two examples. Amina manages a twelve-storey office. Her contractor sends monthly reports, and she signs them. After this course she should be able to read those reports critically and spot the out-of-range result on page six. Khalid runs maintenance at a care home. His hot water outlets are slow to get hot. After this course he should be able to diagnose whether the cause is circulation, a thermostatic mixing valve or the calorifier, and decide what to fix first.
What is not in this course
A site has a good risk assessment, but its recommendations were never turned into routine tasks. Which part of the cycle is missing?
Put the control cycle in order
Arrange the stages from first to last.
- 1Carry out the risk assessment
- 2Write the scheme of control
- 3Carry out and record the tasks
- 4Audit and review
- 5Survey the system and draw the schematic
- 6Act on out-of-range results