We were delighted to be invited to attend the Legionella seminar hosted by Wright’s Services UK Ltd on Friday November 30th at Chester University.
Wright’s Services provide Mechanical Engineering Services specialising in: Laboratory Water Analysis, Legionella Risk Assessment & Management Control, Facilities Management, Industrial & Commercial Plumbing & Gas Services. Wright’s have been using ZetaSafe to manage water hygiene compliance since March 2017.
The seminar was aimed at anyone involved in the control of Legionella Bacteria in Hot and Cold Water Systems and was be divided in two parts:
- Recent Case Histories- Guest Speaker Mr John Newbold.
- Workshop & Networking.
John gave a comprehensive overview and timeline of Legionella case history in the UK, starting with the first recorded outbreak in 1976 and compared multiple case studies, findings and learnings of outbreaks since. He referenced case studies such as: Barrow Council 2002, Edinburgh Outbreak 2012, Stafford General District Hospital 1985, Corby 1996/7 and the BBC 1988. Other key notes of his presentation were:
- The legislation changes that were brought about by each of these outbreaks.
- The average of 350 cases reported each year has not decreased in the last 20 years – perhaps an indication that there is still a gap in awareness, or alternatively that a greater amount of testing is happening.
- The overall costs of individual fines have increased – fines used to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, but are now reaching there millions. The way that these are now calculated takes into account factors such as annual turnover, culpability and the harm (or potential harm) caused.
- 2013 introduction of Regulators Intervention Programme has bought to light three most common failures: Implementation of a Control Scheme, Training/Competency Failures and Cleaning of Cooling towers.
The main message and take away from the seminar was: “Competency is knowing your own capabilities – knowing that you don’t know something is equally important as knowing it.”
The workshop split attendees into teams of four. Each team was given a schematic drawing and asked to identify 16 potential hazards. Despite being in a room full of trained engineers, who spend a lot of their day looking at these types of drawings, only a select few were able to find all 16 potential hazards. This highlighted that competency is not just about training, but encompasses a range of experience, knowledge and skills.
We were delighted to support this event and meet Wright’s end users and prospective clients. This was a great platform for us to demonstrate the ways in which ZetaSafe can be used to keep it’s user’s compliant against the many types of legislation and enforced standards, to avoid any outbreaks or fines to businesses or establishments.
Download ZetaSafe Water Safety and Fire Safety Compliance software explainer PDF