Management and training

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recognise the importance and effectiveness of having a single person in management to avoid the trap of several people all thinking ‘someone else has it sorted’.

This of course leads to errors, omissions, failings etc that sadly end up with outbreaks and even deaths from Legionnaires’ Disease. Hence the strong direction to appoint someone in charge of legionella control whether it is from Health & Safety, Facilities, Building Management, Operations, Environmental or another department.

Like most areas of business, legionella control benefits from good leadership and management. Training is a crucial tool in the fight against complacency and ineffectual policies or procedures.

Where operatives, supervisors and managers have knowledge, understanding, practice and support they are far more likely to achieve the objective of minimising the risk than those who aren’t appropriately trained.

Training should be stimulating and productive. It is well known that motivated staff who feel supported by colleagues, contractors and consultants etc are more effective ‘on the ground’. They can also spot problems early and report back so intervention action is taken rather than waiting for ‘it all to go horribly wrong’. The staff ‘at the coal face’ are very valuable to controlling the risk and they have an important role to carry out every day.