How Important is a Legionella Risk Assessment?

If you find yourself asking this question, then you need to call us right away, or at least visit the HSE site for further info.

In business, risks need to be assessed. A Legionella Risk Assessment (LRA) is the best thing to have in your arsenal if queries are ever raised that question the health and safety measures in your organisation.

However, it is worth noting that the calibre of an assessment is also key, so its worth doing your research into a company before signing up for one.

If you’re unsure of whether you qualify, the ACoP L8 is your Bible, so familiarise yourself with it if you can. This offers key information on Record Keeping, Your role as an employer and how to prevent or control the risk of Legionella.

To avoid explaining everything your LRA should include, check out the HSE Website Legionnaires Section  for the full breakdown and explanation to clear things up.

If you do not have a Legionella Risk Assessment in place, you could be at risk of prosecution if an outbreak should occur. Of course, this is the worst case scenario but better to have an assessment in the first place right?

The bottom line: If you are an employer, or are in control of premises, you must be aware and understand the risks associated with Legionella and must also be seen to take precautions to reduce those risks.

Do your organisation a favour and ensure you are complying with legal requirements.

 Get in touch with GES Water to get a comprehensive Legionella Risk Assessment tailored to your business.

All our Risk Assessments are carried out by experienced and competent Risk Assessors, so you can be safe in the knowledge that all bases will be covered and all work completed to the highest standards.

Always Remember:

 GET COMPLIANT. ENSURE COMPETENCY. SHOW CONTROL.

Call 01844 299499 or

check out our website www.ges-water.co.uk

Free Legionella Seminar

We are hosting a FREE Legionella Awareness Seminar in Slough. Book your FREE place now! #healthandsafety #legionella

Date: Wednesday 2nd October 2013

Venue: The Centre Conference Venue

Farnham Road

Slough

SL1 4UT

GES Water Twitter

Lets Do Business Brighton

About the Show:

 2013 Brighton Show

10am-4pm, Thursday 16th May

at Brighton Racecourse

With 120+ exhibition stands and over 1000 business owners and key decision-makers under one roof, it's the perfect place to showcase your company, source top quality products & services and network with like-minded business leaders from across Sussex and beyond.

The 2012 exhibition attracted 1003 attendees from Brighton & Hove, East & West Sussex and Surrey. 

With 120+ exhibition stands and over 1000 business owners and key decision-makers under one roof, it's the perfect place to showcase your company, source top quality products & services and network with like-minded business leaders from across Sussex and beyond.

Yesterday GES Water went to Let's do business in Brighton, we went armed with business cards, posters, flyers and some of our team. We sent 2 young ladies down to attend the Social Media Seminars:

11am: How to use LinkedIn as a Business Development Tool

Julia Chanteray, The Joy of Business

A look at how to use LinkedIn to build your online presence, engage with people you might not otherwise meet, and build your sales pipeline. This seminar will make you look at LinkedIn in a completely different way, so that it becomes an integral part of your sales process, and a fantastic money making tool

12pm: Facebook for Business

Kate Bacon, Communications Genius

Many people think Facebook is just about having fun tagging friends in photos, but there is so much more to this social media platform! In this introduction to Facebook for Business, Kate will show you how to build your brand by effectively engaging your audience, winning their trust and creating raving fans.

1pm: Social Media Marketing Strategy

Adrian Swinscoe, Rare Business

The 4 C's that'll help you develop and implement a social media strategy that works. You know that you should have a social media strategy. You may already have one in place but are not generating results. In this session, Adrian will provide some tips for creating a social media strategy that works and his 4 C framework to help you design your own.

2pm: Google Plus - The Next Big Thing in Social

Ben Kelly, Alphawave Media

It's becoming the new star of social media and now has more active users than Twitter! Yet amazingly few people really know what it is or how it works”

3pm: Social Media on the Move

Matthew Jackson, Solutions-Inc

Mobile devices have enabled us to keep in touch with the world. See some of the more interesting ways to keep in touch with clients while in or out of the office.

We also had 2 of our sales team to answer any question and wonder around to gather as much information and network as much as possible.

Candice and Sammi are our newest member to the Sales Consultant team, they are eager to learn and rearing to get stuck in with any business needed. They love to get to know clients are working extremely hard.

 Everyone had a great day and really enjoyed the show, we managed to meet some interesting people and gather some great information which will hopefully help us to help you.

If you would like any information Call us on 01844 299 499

Seminar Review

As you all know GES Water held a seminar at The Source Skills Academy on Wednesday the 1st May 2013. 

 We had an amazing time and we were really pleased with how it went, we want to say a big thank you to David Harper for speaking, GES Technology for their presentation and all our guests for coming.

 We hope that everyone enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot.

Here is a brief summary of what was involved in our seminar:

Everyone arrived early and had some tea and biscuits while they settled into their seats. We kicked off with a quick introduction as to who GES are as the holders of the seminar. David Harper then took to the stage and gave everyone a bit of background explaining how he came to do what he does which was very interesting. He certainly has the credentials and experience when it comes to Legionnaires Disease to the point he has even had it and been on deaths door and survived. He gave everyone some great awareness of when Legionnaires disease was first discovered, where it can be found, how its contracted and the symptoms that can occur with some fantastic life examples he has seen to illustrate his points. 

We then took 10 minutes to all go grab a coffee and stretch our legs and when we returned David Harper put on his HSE hat and spoke to us about the legislation side of things and also mentioned some legislative updates that will be happening.

 We took a break and helped ourselves to the buffet lunch which was provided. Some people utilised this time to put some queries and questions forward to David Harper as well as the GES staff who was mingling with everyone.

 When we returned from lunch, our very own Alan Holland who is the Northern Regional Manager did a quick re-cap of the key points that David discussed and got all the groups to take part in an activity, this involved going through a dummy risk assessment and answering some questions which were posed in the work sheet given. Everyone did really well and it got them thinking about their own properties too which is what we wanted as the whole day was about the attendees.

 We had another quick break for coffee and when we came back Mark David of GES Technology took the time to go through the various wireless products they do that can help organisations be compliant with legislations with minimal effort. He also gave some examples of cases of how it worked for different organisations which was very informative and is something a few people have shown interest in finding out more about.

All in all it was a great day and we had some great feedback!

Please take a minute to read some of our feedback:

'Excellent seminar with interesting guest speakers and content such as new requirements. We would love more information.' - Police

'Excellent guest speaker coupled with the knowledge and presentations of GES really opened our eyes to legionella as a whole.' - Call Centre


'Guest Speaker was excellent, updated our knowledge and it will make me re-loor at our process.' - Police

The summary Alan Holland gave really helped and it flowed nicely into the scenario provided. We really enjoyed the scenario as it helped us to recap.' - Housing Services

'Gaining knowledge on legionella was as beneficial for us as we can now help to prevent this.' - Planning Consultants

'We really liked the information provided and all the hand-outs’ - Leisure Management

'We really enjoyed David Harpers Presentation, his knowledge is very interesting' - District Council

'We enjoyed the content and found the seminar overall useful' - Building Services

'David Harper was a fantastic Guest speaker and we enjoyed doing the question paper, it was a good reminder' - Energy Provider 

GES Water Fleet

On Thursday 28th March 2013 we had our annual asbestos awareness course, this meant that most of the GES Water vans were in the same place. 

So.... we took advantage of the situation and took some pictures to show off our Fleet. As you can see we have a variety of vehicles that our engineers drive, we have our smaller Fords for our risk assessors and guys who travel far and don't need as much equipment right up through to the new 2013 Transits which are fully equipped with everything they need to complete the job at hand. 

 We are very proud of our vans and keep them in tip top condition (where possible). 

AS you may know from our previous Driven to Be Green post some of our vans are more Eco Friendly, as a whole we are trying to upgrade to the best possible vehicles for this for both our sales team and engineers.

Sarah Elisabeth Photography

New Van Handover

A big Congratulations goes out to our Lucky Engineers Andrew and Darren because today we handed over our two brand new Ford Transit Vans.

GES Water travel all over the country on a daily basis to carry out jobs from Scotland to Cornwall and hopping over to all the islands on the way! With our 2 offices, 1 in Buckinghamshire and the other in Yorkshire we need a good solid fleet of vehicles including cars and vans so we can get to our sites as quickly and easy as possible. As you know from our Driven to be green Ad we are trying to reduce our carbon foot print and this is another step for us in the right direction. 

 As well as keeping our carbon foot print low with our transport we also recycle within the office, we send back old cartridges, recycle old technology and recycle all our paper, cardboard, plastics and even send our food scraps to a local 'Chicken Village'. At GES we try to do our bit for everyone and not just ourselves. 

Over the years GES Water have raised money for a number of charity's by having mufti days on a monthly basis. This year we are helping Different Strokes!

Free GES Water Legionella Seminar.

Free GES-Water Legionella Seminar.

Date: Wednesday 1st May 2013

Location: The Source Skills Academy, 300 Meadowhall Way, Sheffield, S9 1EA

There will be a Buffet available at lunch time and Drinks available through out the Seminar. 

The days schedule: 

9.30    Registration / Welcome serving of tea, coffee, biscuits, orange juice and water.

10.00  Welcome / Introduction to GES-Water, our history and what makes us stand out. 

10.30  Guest speaker David Harper will talk about Legionella and the HSE; what has been    happening in the industry, what the HSE's focal points have been.

12.00  Break out session: Group session tasked at looking at ACoP L8 with a discussion on findings.

12:30  Buffet Lunch

13:30  Legionella certificated awareness course 

            (individuals certificates to be sent via email after the seminar)

14.30  Break out session: Allocation of responsibilities / Legionella control audit 

15:15  Tea & Coffee

  

15.30  Utilising Technology to demonstrate control of your water systems. Product demonstrations and case studies.

16.00   Q & A session

16.30   Summarise / Close.

About David Harper.

David Harper is now one of the leading experts in the field of Legionella, water borne contamination prevention and emergency response.

Also known as the “The Red Adair of the Bug Busters”.

David Harper Associates are here to help organisations with:

Investigation into outbreaks of water borne diseases.

Identification works required to achieve Acop L8 compliance including engineering recommendations.

On site risk assessment with full written reports.

Training: Lectures, Seminars, Workshops and keynote speaker.

What is Leigonella?

Legionella is a pathogenic Gram negative bacterium. It is the causative agent of legionellosis including Legionnaires' disease which is a potentiall fatal form of pneumonia which can affect anybody, but which principally affects those who are susceptible because of age, illness, immunosuppression, smoking etc. Legionella bacteria can also cause less serious illness which are not fatal or permanently debilitating.  

 Legionella is common with at least 50 species and 70 serogroups identified and are often encountered in environmental sources which may eventually colonise manufactured water systems and be found in cooling tower systems, hot and cold water systems and other plant which use or store water. 

Innovative Technology

If you are interested in looking at GES Technology who will also be at our seminar please go to http://gestechnology.blogspot.co.uk/ or http://www.ges-technology.co.uk/

How To Find Us 

SOUTHBOUND: M1

Leave at Junction 34 and approach traffic island in the right hand lane.

 Take the 4th exit off the island (heading under the M1) and follow signs for Sheffield City Centre (A6109).

You will filter left after the 2nd set of traffic lights (signposted Meadowhall) -

this is the ring road around Meadowhall and runs parallel to the viaduct (on your left).

You will see The Source building on your left,

 turn right at the 3rd set of lights

follow the signs to the Blue Car Park, (turning right over the dual carriageway).

There is a pedestrian crossing leading directly across the road to The Source.

NORTHBOUND: M1

Leave at Junction 34, taking the left hand lane. 

Take the 2nd exit and follow signs to

Sheffield City Centre (A6178).

 At the first roundabout, turn right and at the 2nd

roundabout (immediately in front of Meadowhall), 

take the 3rd exit onto Meadowhall Way.

Proceed through 5 sets of traffic lights and you will see The Source building on

your right - turn immediately left and follow the signs for the Blue Car Park.

There is a pedestrian crossing leading directly across the road to The Source.

JUNCTION 34 • M1 • SHEFFIELD

FROM SHEFFIELD CITY CENTRE

Leave Sheffield City Centre along the A61,
 leading onto the A6109 (M1 North) Brightside Lane.
Continue for approximately 21/2 miles.
Go straight on at the roundabout with Forgemasters on your right
at the 4th set of traffic lights, Meadowhall is signposted
but continue straight on, remaining on the A6109. 
You will pass Warner Village Cinema on the right 
proceed under a footbridge leading to the Passenger Transport Interchange.
You should now be in the right hand lane, ready to turn right after the
next set of traffic lights.
The right turn is sign posted Meadowhall
You will filter left after the 2nd set of traffic lights (signposted Meadowhall)
this is the ring road around Meadowhall and runs parallel to the viaduct (on your left).
You will see The Source building on your left,
turn right at the 3rd set of lights
follow the signs to the Blue Car Park, (turning right over the dual carriageway).
There is a pedestrian crossing leading directly across the road to The Source.

R.S.V.P


Please R.S.V.P to Alan Holland on 07789764350 
or
email him at AHolland@ges-water.co.uk
Or you can call The Seminar Team 
Sam Hawkes and Candice Meder 
on
01844 299 499
So we can send you a booking form and log any dietary requirements.

 We Look Forward To Seeing You!