British Establishments to be checked on Legionella Control

British Establishments are going to be checked up and down the country by the HSE. Currently, the gaze has been turned to Scotland, but its only a matter of time before the rest of the UK gets involved, especially following the recent outbreaks in England. The full article reads:

Businesses are organisations in the West of Scotland with cooling towers are facing checks to ensure they are managing legionella risks appropriately. 

Currently, Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities are visiting cooling towers and evaporative condensers in Glasgow, North Ayrshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire; however checks are expected to be carried out across similar sites in Britain. 

These inspections follow the publication of a safety notice in July warning of the legionella risks posed by cooling towers and evaporative condensers, and are also part of a wider initiative to promote better control of legionella.   

“Our research has confirmed that cooling towers pose the biggest legionella risk. If we, or local authority inspectors, find that the appropriate controls are not in place, we will take enforcement action. 

A review of legionella outbreaks by the HSE in 2011 highlighted cooling towers and evaporative condensers as being responsible for the majority of the most significant outbreaks in Britain in the past ten years. 

Commenting on the visits that the HSE are currently embarking on, David Snowball, Director for Scotland and Northern England, said: 

“We are doing these visits to focus businesses' attention on ensuring they are doing what is required both to protect their workers and the wider public.

"Inspections are a valuable part of our regulatory action. They are however no substitute for companies meeting their legal duties on a daily basis, given that legionella levels can increase to high levels in a matter of days or weeks."

The HSE Drop Standards When Monitoring Legionella

Seem's the old HSE needs to up their game in monitoring the leginella control scene- it has come to light, since the Edinburgh outbreak, that the frequency in which they check that duty holders are taking their responsibilities seriously has declined in recent years. The following report reads:

An investigation launched in the wake of the Edinburgh outbreak of the illness has exposed reductions in the number of Legionella inspections carried out by the Health and Safety Executive.

 

The probe by the publication Environmental Health News found the number of pro-active HSE inspections across the UK fell from 833 in 2009 to 464 in 2011.

The number of Legionella inspections at cooling towers dropped from 237 in 2010 to 134 in 2011. Around 2900 cooling towers are subject to inspections from the HSE.
 

The source of the Edinburgh outbreak is yet to be determined but attention has centred on cooling towers in the city.
 

Professor Hugh Pennington, emminent microbiologist and chair of the public inquiry into Scotland's fatal Wishaw Ecoli outbreak, said: "It is clearly time for a rapid root and branch reform of the regulatory system for Legionella."
 

Lawyers representing victims of the Edinburgh outbreak, in which more than 100 people fell ill and three people died, expressed serious concerns about the findings.
 Clive Garner, of Irwin Mitchell, said there were fears that towers which could pose a serious public risk will not be inspected until it is too late.

Edinburgh Cooling Tower Inspected Once a Decade!

Yet again, Scotland has fallen prey to the bugs of legionella, and inquiries have been made. The findings are crazy - one cooling tower was found to be only checked once every 10 years; apparently, being suspicious of some cooling towers, around the area, being completely ignored isn't a mad idea either. The details are ludicrous in following report:

SCOTLAND’S top virus expert has called for a public inquiry into the recent legionella outbreak which claimed the lives of three men.

Professor Hugh Pennington has warned of more outbreaks after discovering many of the country’s cooling towers are being inspected as infrequently as once every ten years.

“Legionnaires’ disease is one of the nastiest and most lethal of infectious diseases in the UK,” he said. “But it is utterly 
preventable. Something went badly wrong in Edinburgh. A public inquiry is the most 
effective way to establish the facts around what went wrong and to prevent yet more outbreaks.”

More than 100 people contracted the bug, which began in the south-west of Edinburgh in May. Investigations to find the source are ongoing and continue to centre on industrial cooling towers in the area.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has already issued notices to some of the businesses that run towers being investigated, calling for them to be 
better maintained and regulated.

There are about 6,000 cooling towers across the UK and the HSE only has responsibility for inspecting about half of them. The rest are checked by local councils.

Latest figures show in 2011 the HSE inspected just 134 cooling towers – compared with 237 the year before.

Prof Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said the towers were being inspected ten times less often than premises which sell food.

“There is a real lack of co-ordination regarding who inspects all of these towers, how often they do so and even where all these towers are,” he said.

“There are genuine fears some towers will be going under the radar and not inspected at all.

“Given all of this, I worry other outbreaks will follow, putting more lives at risk. This risk is real and the bug is not going away.

“Some people who fall victim to Legionnaires’ do have underlying health conditions but it is no good blaming things like smoking and drinking for this.

“The bottom line is that three people died after getting Legionnaires’ in Edinburgh and other areas of the UK.

“People should not be dying from this in this day and age.

“Yes, inquiries are expensive ,but so is the cost of looking after people infected with 
Legionnaires’ in our hospitals. Ultimately, an inquiry would save money and lives.”

Scottish Labour last night backed the inquiry call. The party’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie, said: “Prof Pennington’s intervention is significant and his authoritative voice should be a reason for the Scottish Government to pause and reflect on their decision not to have an independent inquiry.”