BSI, the business standards company, has released British standard BS 8580-1:2019 Water quality, risk assessments for Legionella control – Code of practice; a significant revision to the 2010 British Standard providing further guidelines for assessing water quality and the risk of Legionnaires disease.

This standard gives recommendations and guidance on the assessment of the risk of Legionellosis presented by artificial water systems. Legionellosis is a collective term for diseases caused by bacteria of the genus Legionella, an opportunist pathogen which normally inhabits warm, moist or aquatic environments. The most serious and potentially fatal is Legionnaires’ disease.

Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease continue to happen today. Recently, an apartment building in New York City saw 50 casualties and 2 fatalities, while in England and Wales UK Government statistics reported 4 cases in 2018.

Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, employers or those people in control of premises became responsible for understanding the associated health risks and for carrying out appropriate risk assessments such as those for Legionella. Therefore, in 2010, BSI published the first edition of this British standard, BS 8580:2010, offering the necessary recommendations and guidance.

By 2014, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had restructured and made changes to its Approved Code of Practice and guidance for controlling Legionella bacteria in water systems, known as ACoP L8. It then separated ACoP L8 from its technical guidance which was further developed by industry groups into three distinct parts:

• HSG 274 Part 1 is concerned with cooling towers
• HSG 274 Part 2 is concerned with hot and cold water services
• HSG 274 Part 3 is concerned with “other” systems

Various factors prompted this revision of the original British Standard published in 2010, namely: the separation of the ACoP L8 and HSG documentation, the shift from a single description of the risk assessment process and outputs to the recommendations for the frequency of inspection in each of the individual industry group (HSG 274 Parts 1, 2 and 3).

It also takes new information, published in 2017 as HSG 282 – control of Legionella and other infectious agents in spa pools, into consideration.

David Fatscher, Head of Sustainability at BSI, said: “We shouldn’t underestimate the risk Legionnaires’ disease poses to society today, therefore having updated guidance and recommendations for its prevention is as important as ever. This revised standard aims to enable anyone with responsibility for the health and safety of others in public premises, across the spectrum from the workplace to hospitals, to undertake the necessary risk assessments and adopt adequate prevention measures”.

The BS 8580-1:2019 is a significant revision of the existing British standard BS 8580 published in 2010. More information on BS 8580-1:2019 Water quality, risk assessments for Legionella control- Code of practice general guidelines can be found here

In 2019, BSI decided to offer tracked-changes versions of key standards that had been revised, to help users see clearly what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. BSI is pleased to say that BS 8580-1 can be acquired as a simple standard or as a ‘Tracked-changes package’ where customers receive both the new standard and a tracked-changes version.

To learn more, please visit: www.bsigroup.com