One of my team at my former place did the C&G Legionella course. Not sure who he did it with, but it was invaluable. Cost less the £500 as I recall. He was able to confidently assess complex listed premises dating back to the 15th Century (in one case) housing very vulnerable people overnight. He did end up looking at a lot of taps, but it was worth it from everybody's perspective, John

I've mixed feelings about this. I think more people having better understanding of legionella is great - hell, its your site, you'll know it better than someone coming in from outside. But, legionella risk assessments are 90% doing the basics and then 10% really really really knowing what you are doing. A City & Guilds course isn't a set syllabus. They will differ from each other based on the provider. And whilst sometimes I talk up how easy legionella control can be, doing a suitable and sufficient risk assessment is the number one starting point to that...and knowing what you don't know isn't going to be fully covered on one C&G course. Competence in this field for complex risk assessment stems from knowledge of water chemistry, microbiology, water systems/engineering and health & safety. Its quite a skill set. There are now accredited NVQ (I think its QCF now) style courses out there for legionella risk assessment i.e. someone watches you do an assessment and gives you a pass. But they are to a national set of competence based standards. I would suggest that these are the gold standard for an industry where there have historically been no specific qualifications as such. I only know of one current provider and, for forum/commercial reasons, I won't name them. Failing that, the Water Management Society accredit the content of some courses in this field - and that would be the next sort of course I looked to go on.

I guess I would consider the following which may give you an indication if in house train would be OK or the need for the experts is required. 1. Are there vulnerable people in the premises; 2. Do you have cold water storage; 3. Do you have hot water storage; 4. Do you have long lengths of hot water pipework and are both the hot and cold water pipes lagged/insulated; 5. Do you have showers; 6. Do you have a Spa or Jacuzzi type bathes etc... The above list (not exhaustive) are some of the things that increase the risk of legionella bacteria. Hope this helps.

Thanks all, great to get some other inputs in subjects like this. Mark.

Before buying training I'd sugest that you check with your insurers. They may require that your legionella risk assessor be a member of the legionella control asociation or MWMSoc for example.