While pneumonia is bad in itself, contracting legionnaire's disease is even worse. This is a fatal form of the illness and is the result of ingesting the bacterium called Legionella pneumophila.
This is a water-borne illness. The conditions it requires to flourish are quite similar to what we have in most public places.
Most places have now made it legally mandatory for an establishment to have a risk assessment carried out in accordance with legionella risk assessment how often.

When you hire a legionella risk assessment company to conduct the survey for you here is what you can expect. All sources of water will be assessed and samples will be taken. This water is tested for the bacteria and if found present steps will be taken to ensure that the bacterium is taken care of. This is in the form of chlorination or other forms of disinfection of the water. An assessment will also be made of future possible infections of the water and remedial steps will be provided for that as well.

When you hire an assessment service you have to make sure that they are certified by the right authorities in your area and conduct their work in accordance with the legionella laws of your area.

They have to be a complete service, in that they should conduct the survey, provide you with the results and also be able to handle any presence of the bacteria in the water. Ideally if they are a service that provides advice on maintenance of water supply and also provides troubleshooting via phone and email, you should consider hiring them on a contractual basis.

It is best to have these water inspectors on your premises when the work will be least disrupted. Most of these agencies work outside of what are considered normal working hours. As an organization you will also need to have a clear management framework in mind and a set number of people need to be allotted responsibilities related to timely maintenance checks of the water supply that you have. Each of them will have to be made legally responsible on an individual basis for their duties.

Make sure that your legal department remains constantly updated on changes in requirement in the legislation laws so that you are never in doubt as to what needs to be done. Once you have the assessment done, it would be a good idea to follow it up on a yearly or half yearly basis to ensure the safety of your employees as well as your organization from a legal standing.

Author's Bio: 

rahul