This ESPO framework offers customers a quick, simple and competitive route to service providers who are able to provide water system risk assessments and water hygiene monitoring services. This framework offers customers access to a choice of pre-approved, industry compliant, water risk assessment and water hygiene monitoring service providers, all of which have been robustly pre-vetted via an EU compliant tender exercise. Why use this framework? There is a legal obligation on employers to assess their water systems for potential risks of harbouring and distributing Legionella as well as other water born bacteria.
Lot 1 Water System Risk Assessment Services
All water systems require a risk assessment, water system risk assessment (WRA) is essentially a survey of your current water system (including pipes, tanks and outlets) to assess the risk of exposure to legionella bacteria from the system itself and any work activities that utilise the water system. As part of the service a risk assessment engineer will inspect, assess and certify all your water system, as covered by the “L8 Legionella in Water Systems Code of Practice”, and provide advice as to its condition and safety. A written report will be provided as evidence that your water system has been checked for potential risks, the report will also outline any precautionary measures needed and/or any corrective works that can be undertaken to improve the safety of the water system.
Lot 2 Water Hygiene Monitoring Services
Following a WRA a written report will be provided to you by the service provider based on the engineer’s assessment of your system. As part of the report the service provider is required to indicate the level of risk that your system possesses and recommend solutions to reduce the risk, taking into account the particular risks associated with the building, the water system identified and the people using the building. The likely recommendation will be for a monitoring regime, known as water hygiene monitoring (WHM), to be put in place whereby the system is checked at regular intervals to ensure that the conditions needed for bacteria growth are reduced. WHM is a scheduled regime of water system checks and monitoring to ensure that the water within the system is being stored appropriately to reduce the risk of legionella and other water based bacteria’s cultivating. To discourage the cultivation of legionella and other water based bacteria’s cold water must be stored below 20oC and hot water must be stored above 50oC. As well as temperature monitoring the service provider will provide cleaning and disinfecting of outlets, pipes and tanks, water sampling, reconfiguring of thermal mixing valves and purging of seldom used outlets such as showers to reduce the risk of legionella in the water system. For non-temperature controlled systems a disinfection programme may be in place and service providers under this Lot will be able to monitor and provide maintenance on these systems to reduce the risk of infection. As well as on-going monitoring non-routine water hygiene tasks such as chlorination and other bactericide treatments will fall under this Lot. At the end of each site visit the service provider will update a site specific Log Book and present it to the client so that a clear auditable record of tasks carried out is maintained.
Lot 3 Water System Risk Assessment and Water Hygiene Monitoring Services (Combined Service)
Lot 3 will cover the combined services of Lot 1 and Lot 2 to be delivered by a single service provider.
