Inside: 4 qualities to look for in a water safety partner. Collaborative post.
Keeping any business with physical premises safe from Legionella and other waterborne threats is a long-term, compliance-heavy job. No in-house team holds every piece of expertise needed, which is why organisations turn to external specialists. Below, we’ve gone through four attributes that separate a “tick-box” contractor from a genuinely useful partner, to help you find the right one for your business.
- Regulation-level expertise
A credible partner must speak the same language as the guidance you are audited against. Just a few potential example areas could include healthcare, general estates management, HSE and other water-specific areas such as Water Safety Plans and Legionella risk assessments.
Your partner’s remit covers everything from initial Legionella risk assessments to helping you to develop full Water Safety Plans. The ultimate goal is to have a team of water safety related experts, to cover each area of expertise as well as possible – your water safety partner will be just one of these amongst many.
- Independence and objectivity
If your assessor also sells showers and chlorination chemicals, advice can drift from impartial and compliance building, to a potentially dodgy marketing tactic. Make sure that you choose a partner that positions itself as an independent consultancy – no in-house remedial division, no chemical sales target – so that their reports focus purely on risk and compliance, not downstream sales opportunities. That impartiality is an important practical and legal requirement, and can make an immense difference to the quality of the advice that you receive.
- Ability to empower your organisation
The best consultants leave you stronger, not more dependent on their services. Beyond audits, competent water safety partners like the Water Hygiene Centre should provide tailored training for Responsible Persons and Water Safety Groups, supply editable policy and SOP templates, and potentially even host cloud-based document systems so estates, facilities and infection-control teams share a single document, rather than having to navigate a whole range of messy files.
- Clear data
Compliance hinges on evidence: sampling results, non-conformance logs, and closed-out actions all need to be noted somewhere you can show auditors should the need arise. Look for a partner that delivers digital reports within days, flags high-priority items, and returns for scheduled reviews rather than disappearing after handover.
If you’re not left with this data, you won’t only be in trouble if an incident does actually occur – you’ll also be left vulnerable to regulatory compliance failures in the event you face a standard water safety audit. Make sure that the frameworks your water safety partner leaves you with also makes it easy to collect your own data, and that it’s all stored in a single, safe, accessible location for when you need it.
Choose a water-safety partner with deep regulatory knowledge, genuine independence, a track record in staff development, and transparent, ongoing governance. Match those criteria against potential suppliers and make sure that the option you end up going with ticks all the right boxes, to leave your business in safe hands, both practically and legally.