Hi, I havent posted on here for a long time but would welcome any suggestions to my current H&S issue. Basically we have a number of sites that have been identified as low risk during L8 risk water assessments. Our L8 assessor has advised that we should complete 6 monthly temperature inspections however after reviewing the ACOP it states this should be completed monthly. With our staff turnover 6 monthly would be better for us as it could be completed externally but this doesnt fit in line with the ACOP. Has anyone implemented this kind of monitoring and if so what is the correct method? Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the reply Jonty.

Howdy The ACoP, L8, does not say anything about frequencies of inspection. HSG274 Part 2 has been recently published and contains guidance for monitoring tasks and their frequencies. A small difference but a key one given the different status the documents have. The legal requirement always was and still remains to undertake a risk assessment and implement appropriate control measures. It is entirely within the remit of the guidance and the ACoP to step away from any recommended frequencies and do things differently. However... I would only want to do so on the basis of a competently undertaken suitable and sufficient risk assessment with evidence to justify why I was doing things differently. I wouldn't want my reason to be that it fitted my staff turnover needs alone. 'Low risk' is rather a subjective term and even the very competent in this field could argue for days about what was and wasn't 'low' in risk. With all the usual caveats in place about not knowing your specific circumstances, could I just add that running a tap or outlet for a minute and putting a thermometer underneath it is not a particularly time consuming or intellectually challenging task...even on a debatedly 'low' risk site you only need to do a handful of sentinel outlets that your risk assessor should be able to identify for you.