Boy am I glad I didn't go swimming last week as planned! This pool doesn't have much luck does it lol

It is curious to know why they were doing “routine” biological testing for legionellae at all, as the HSE guidance (L8) clearly says this is NOT an appropriate monitoring strategy, unless the system is known to be out of control.

So Either it was known to be out of control, or they have never done a proper risk assessment and are thus doing inappropriate, expensive, infrequent and unreliable monitoring instead of the cheap frequent and representative monitoring and other preventative maintenance that L8 requires. Further questions need to be asked.

Very useful information.
I am in the process of writing questions for the next meeting of Lewisham Council and will take that up as is.
Any other suggestions welcome.

By the way, they know of it since the 16th of May and failed to inform the users for over 2 weeks, the time when it was most critical for the users to be informed.

I've been going to Ladywell for some time now, and over the past few weeks the showers in the changing rooms have been "out of order". Ladywell was open for at least 10days with the showers out of order. Does that mean that they knew about risk, and still allowed people into the changing rooms?

I know that Legionnaires must be airbourne to get into the respiratory system, but I think that ( if known ) the centre should have been closed much earlier.

They say in the article above that they acted quickly, but that is a complete lie - as someone said in a comment above, the showers were out of use from 16th May, meaning they must have known about this then but did not inform users of the risks, or shut the changing rooms or nearby areas which might have been affected. Also, the signs posted in the foyer informing users that the showers were out of order said this was due to a "plumbing problem" - also a complete lie! Further investigation absolutely needs to be done into this, it is unforgivable to put paying customers' health at risk in this way.

In practice stopping use of the showers is probably all that is immediately needed if you find a low level of legionellae in a hot water system (not that routine testing is recommended in many systems), in an otherwise L8 compliant premises.

Closing the whole centre for this alone is only sensible if the loss of the showering facility causes consequential risks that are not acceptable. This should happen regardless of the reason the showers are unavailable (e.g. the more common hot water boiler breakdown or blocked drain problems), should also cause the facility to be closed. Thus in a swimming pool, where pre swim showering is needed to control the cryptosporidium risk, then you need to consider closing the pool not because of the legionellae presence, but because of the cryptosporidium risk that is now less well controlled.

If it was a gym or football pavilion where showering is primarily for aesthetic rather than safety reasons, then there is no reason to close the premises just because a low level of legionellae is found, just close the shower facility. If however as a result of discovering this failing, you then determine that in fact you have never done a meaningful legionellae risk assessment, and so no legionlellae control strategy is in place, and thus you have no way of knowing if in fact a high level of legionellae might also be present elsewhere in the system, giving rise to a significant risk in other places in the building, then closing the whole premises, on the precautionary principle, might well be justified. It is the discovery of an uncontrolled risk that is the issue, not whether legionellae happens to be there or not, (which has been established by case law to be the main criminal liability issue). One wonders if this is why it was done in this case ?

No figures were given as to what the actual legionellae level was in the sample taken. It is implied it was low (or even at a “trace” level), and so any risk to users would have been minimal, (or even only theoretical), and so alerting them might cause more harm that good due to raising unreasonable fears. If however the levels were higher, (i.e. there was some meaningful risk) then alerting all potentially exposed users that, if they had the symptoms of legionellosis, they should seek medical advice, should have been considered. Also alerting the HPA so that local medical practitioners and hospitals were tipped off to the increased local need to test all symptomatic patients, (who had used the facility recently), for legionellae infection would have been appropriate, so that suitable antibiotic etc. treatments could be administered without avoidable delay.

In any case the result was historical by the time they received it, as there is usually a delay of a week or more between biological sampling and results (depending on what test method is used) which is one reason why it is not generally an appropriate primary routine control method. So closing the showers is a bit of a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Appropriate monitoring strategies in such systems give real time results that can be acted on immediately, not after a weeks in built delay.

Strictly speaking it was a “plumbing problem”, just not one in the common or garden usage of the term.

When they first closed the showers they told me they were "waiting for a new pump" and that this was why they were out of action. They also told this to several other regular swimmers. We all talk to each other and compare notes - don't they realise this? And I agree that the lack of pre-swim showers was a problem. To be fair though, no-one at the pool enforces the taking of preswim showers anyway. I wish they did!

As a company we specialise in setting up water hygiene regimes which concentrate primarily on legionella bacteria control. Many companies do use legionella testing as a double check to make sure that the precautionary measures are working.

The primary control measures should be to designed out the risk by ensuring the system mechanical design and operational strategy does not promote bacterial proliferation

Low bacteria levels detected could have been as a result of bacteria coming in on the mains and in normal circumstances provided, the system mechanical design was adequate, and temperatures were within control limits, the bacteria would not have colonised the systems and would have been simply flushed out by normal usage. The risk of contracting legionnaires' disease does depend on the level of bacteria in the water droplets being breathed and the type of legionella bacteria serogroup present.

There is no reference to precautionary measures taken whilst the showers were out of use. If the showers were just left to stagnate, the bacteria would multiply in the pipework feeding the shower resulting in very high levels from the shower when it is turned on again.

Daily flushing using safe operating procedures were the individuals flushing the showers are not exposed to water droplets should have been instigated and should have been included in the escalation procedures (if there were any in place).

I would suspect that normal system disinfection procedures had failed to eradicate the bacteria which is why the centre had to be closed.