Social Care News

HSE prosecutes care home over legionella failings

A private care home in Wallasey, Merseyside has been ordered to pay £40,000 in fines and costs after it failed to manage the risk of elderly residents catching a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.

Mother Redcaps Care Home Ltd was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after it failed to comply with an Improvement Notice to assess the risk from the legionella bacteria.

Liverpool Crown Court was told (August 23) that the care home did not have a system in place for managing its hot and cold water. It was first served with an Improvement Notice requiring a risk assessment in November 2011, following a visit from a HSE inspector.

The company was given two extensions to a deadline to comply with the notice. However, it had still failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment by May 2012, despite being offered help and guidance on what was required.

Without proper controls legionella bacteria can build up in water systems where the temperature is between 20 and 45 degrees celsius, creating the risk that small droplets containing the bacteria could be breathed when water becomes airborne, such as in showers.

The court heard that up to 50 residents, as well as the nursing home's employees, could have been put at risk of contracting Legionnaires' disease if the bacteria had been present.

Mother Redcaps Care Home Ltd, of Greenside Gardens in Leyland, was fined £6,525 and ordered to pay £33,475 in costs after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

• Read the full story on the HSE website
• More information on Legionnaires' disease is available at www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires.