The Health and Safety Executive approved code of practice (ACOP) Legionnaires’ disease – The control of legionella bacteria in water systems – states that the “dutyholder” is responsible for ensuring a legionella risk assessment is carried out. For swimming pools, you are the dutyholder if you are either of the following:

(a)  You are the employer, where the risk from your undertaking is to your employees or others; or
(b)  You are a self-employed person, where there is a risk from your undertaking to yourself or others; or
(c)  You are the person who is in control of the premises or systems in connection with work, where there is a risk from systems in the building, e.g. where a building is let to tenants, but the landlord keeps responsibility for its maintenance. 

All employers, landlords, pool operators and premises managers have a duty to understand and manage legionella risk within their swimming pool systems. They need to ensure that they conduct a regular water system risk assessment.

A swimming pool legionella risk assessment should inspect locations where water is used or stored; and where there is a means of creating and transmitting water droplets (aerosols) which may be inhaled, causing a reasonably foreseeable risk of exposure to legionella.

The following locations should be included where present:

• Swimming pools and learner pools
• Leisure pools and wave pools
• Poolside showers and changing room showers
• Hydrotherapy pools and spa pools where present
• Cooling systems with cooling towers
• Evaporative condensers
• Dry/wet cooling systems
• Hot and cold water systems
• Other plant and systems containing water that can create and increase the risk from legionella during operation or when being maintained

To undertake a swimming pool legionella risk assessment, you must have the competence (knowledge and skills) to fulfil your health and safety duties, e.g. take responsibility for managing the control scheme. You should make reasonable enquiries to satisfy yourself of any contractor’s competence in this area of work before entering into contracts for the treatment, monitoring and cleaning of the system, and any other aspects of water treatment and control. An illustration of levels of service to expect from water treatment companies can be found here Legionella Control Association.

A pool engineer could undertake legionella risk assessments; however, you would need to assess that they are competent to undertake these assessments. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) describe competency as being made up of the correct qualifications, experience and training for the task to be completed. The law provides that this is done by someone competent for the task.

Legionella bacteria reside within water bodies including lakes, water sources and rivers. In swimming pool systems, they can colonise circulation pipework, balance tanks, filters, dead legs, showers and areas of low flow.

Given the correct combinations of environmental factors, a swimming pool system can become a breeding ground for legionella growth. Legionella bacteria may cause significant health problems if stored and recirculated water and breathable water droplets are allowed to spread into the air.

Your swimming pool legionella risk assessment report will provide a detailed plan of action. This report will list all identified hazards with photos, temperature data (where applicable) and an asset register.

Recommendations for implementing effective legionella control measures will be provided as well as any required remediation works, prioritised so you know where to start.

Your reports will be quality checked and e-mailed in PDF format.

We guarantee you that we’ll issue your report within 5 days when no samples are collected.

Where water samples are collected, reporting times will be increased subject to laboratory analysis times.