Our specialist provider supported this by delivering briefing sessions to key staff. Very well received. Silenced the "I'm not trained" brigade.
p.m. if you want to know who our Provider is.

To answer part of your question, the two leading cases in legionnella prosecutions is Barrow Borough Council and one of its managers Gillian Beckingham, the other being R v Trustees of the Science Museum [1993]. However, the latter is more remarkable not for the cause - legionnaires, but because it is a rare case of a prosecution for purely creating a risk pursuant to s3(1) HSWA.

Following a legionnaires outbreak in 2002 where seven people died, Barrow Borough Council and Gillian Beckingham were both cleared of manslaughter charges but found guilty of health and safety offences and were fined £125k and £15k respectively.

In R v Trustees of the Science Museum, the museum was prosecuted for not properly maintaining air conditioning units which exposed members of the public to legionnaire's disease and fined a meagre £500 plus costs.

Ron

I don't know the full facts of the Science Museum case, but the case itself is significant because there was no actual injury or ill health; and unlike s2(1) creating a risk is an offence as per s3(1) of HSWA.

It is generally considered that the paltry fine was due to the fact the court did not fully appreciate that exposing people to serious risk is no different in principle to causing an injury. A fact that is still not properly appreciated by the authorities and possibly why there are so few similar prosecutions.

Interestingly, Barrow Borough Council were prosecuted for common law 'corporate' gross negligence manslaughter and found not guilty, whereas a similar offence by the Science Museum resulted in a pathetic fine - who says the law is reactive?

Both Barrow and the Science Museum (agree an IP would have been more appropriate) cases, while different, both related to air conditioning systems. There are other cases relating to hold and cold water systems. The case that springs to mind was a fatality involving a cancer patient and a shower in a hospital. I suggest a quick search of the BBC news website or Google.

However, I interpreted the post as wanting prosecutions to do with a failure of the building managers to carry out the basic checks by the individual to whom the task had been given. I know of no specific cases but I suppose any S7(b) might help demonstrate the same, although I couldn't work out how to drill down to a sub section of 7 in the database, so couldn't separate the 'b' cases out of the section 7 cases. As far as Gillian B went, without looking it up again, I think that was a section 7 case but probably an 'a' case, and was substantially to do with more than simply carrying out the checks. (I'm conscious that I am now rambling!).

However, I suggest that a more sensible way forward, in addition to training and trying to get to the bottom of why they won't do these routine checks, would be to deal with this as a 'performance' issue in the 'normal' manner.

In my opinion 'proper maintenance' should include the monitoring of temperatures required for legionella control, however managed. It seems someone has made a decision to split responsibilities for this, which may be perfectly okay.

Have you actually told your managers that they are responsible as one of my memories is that in the Barrow in Furness case one of the early points of the HSE's summary report is criticising the council's management for not clearly defining responsibilities. The Barrow report can be found at
http://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/barrow.htm

Personally I suspect that you should not have significant problems if people were adequately trained in the subject matter. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the jargon and I for one do not believe everything in L8 is needed for all DHWS systems. I'm disappointed with risk assessors recommending monthly checks for even the smallest regularly used over sink water heaters which will generate low temperatures every month when measured as per L8, because that's how they're made but which plainly are not a significant risk. I suspect risk assessors do this to cover their backs rather by following L8 to the letter rather than considering the real risks.

In terms of training, what's needed depends upon how complex your water systems are.

L8 itself can be downloaded for free at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/l8.pdf

A good place to start on the process of DHWS temperatue measurement in my opinion is BSRIA Applications Guide 4/94 'Guide to temperature measurements'. While old, I think its a good publication in terms of how and where to measure because it's not always just stick a thermometer under a tap. Again, that depends upon how complex your systems are. As per my moan above, its also sometimes knowing what's important in terms of the temperature reading.

Zaphod, I tend to agree. We do regular checks as well, but I suspect they are to a large degree either unnecessary or we could increase the frequency based on previous experience of control. In saying that it is for us at least, a relatively simple task to undertake.

Manny, I have a certain amount of 'sympathy' with your view, as I suggest that the risk of infection is probably low as I doubt that an aerosol is unlikely to be produced in the circumstances stated.

However, unfortunately, what we do at home and what we are sometimes required to do at work are sometimes ........ different.