New HSE interventions on Legionnaires' Disease
11 February 2013
HSE recently completed a review of Legionnaires' disease outbreaks over the past ten years that reveals common failings in control, and a potential risk of further legionella outbreaks, such as those in Edinburgh and Stoke in 2012.
The review highlighted a range of failures e.g.:
- departures from planned maintenance schedules (allowing plant conditions to get worse, and longer periods for problems to develop);
- changes in the process (leading to changes in the risks, or rendering existing precautions ineffective);
- staff/contractor changes (leading to a loss of knowledge); intermittent use of plant (resulting in inconsistent control measures)
- unusual weather conditions (e.g. bacteria multiplying very fast in warm weather
Further information regarding 'precautions' is available on the HSE'S Legionella pages