Case Study:  Training Needs - The Success That Comes With Getting It Right! 

When it comes to water risk management, it is vital to ensure those appointed to monitor and assess the safety are sufficiently trained and can effectively identify hazards such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa contamination. With professional and expert training comes success in maintaining the water safety in your organisation, as we have seen in Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 

The Department of Health guidance HTM04-01 requires healthcare organisations to have an established Water Safety Group [WSG] and a defined Water Safety Plan [WSP].  The Water Safety Plan details how the organisation shall manage and minimise the risks to health from various aspects, ranging from clinical risks, microbial and chemical contamination, changes to the water system, resilience of the water supply etc.  One of the microbial risks associated with water is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) consider Legionnaires disease to be a preventable disease and it’s therefore treated as such by the law. Moreover, health and safety law underpins the statutory obligations of; duty holders, employers or those in control of premises which pose a risk to occupiers with respect to acquiring Legionnaires’ disease. The Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) provides specific advice on the health and safety law which applies and the associated duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and HSG274 (Parts 1,2 &3) provide prescriptive guidance notes on how to comply with these duties – stressing that compliance is the ‘minimum requirement’ and should the recommendations detailed in HSG274 not be followed then compliance will need to be demonstrated by other means – in order to satisfy the HSE that risk has been suitably mitigated.