Legionella Awareness Training: What the Law Expects From Employers

Every employer, and anyone in control of premises, has to assess and control the risk from legionella in their water systems. The law asks for that work to be done by someone competent, and for staff to get the training their role needs. Legionella awareness training is the entry level for those staff. It doesn't replace a risk assessment, and it doesn't make anyone the responsible person.

Those last two points are where buyers get caught out. After an audit or an insurer's question, the quick fix is to book a course and file the certificates. But HSE's guidance asks for a risk assessment, a named responsible person, and training that matches each person's part in controlling the risk. For most staff, an awareness course covers part of that training. The rest is yours to sort out.

Who the law puts in charge of legionella

If you're an employer, or someone in control of premises, including a landlord, HSE's legionella guidance says you're responsible for reducing the risk. You must identify and assess sources of risk, manage and control them, and keep the right records.

Three pieces of law sit behind that.

• The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. According to HSE, the Act's duties reach legionella risks that arise from work. Section 2 covers your employees, and section 3 covers other people your work affects, such as tenants and visitors.
• The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. They require a risk assessment and the appointment of competent people to help you meet your duties.
• The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, known as COSHH. HSE says they set the framework for controlling biological agents such as legionella.

HSE's Approved Code of Practice, L8, names the dutyholder. It's the employer, a self-employed person, or the person in control of premises or water systems used for work, such as a landlord who keeps responsibility for maintenance. HSE's landlord guidance says renting out even a room in your own home brings legal duties.

What the law and HSE guidance say about legionella training

All three pieces of law put training duties on you.

Section 2(2)(c) of the 1974 Act requires employers to provide the "information, instruction, training and supervision" needed for their employees' health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable. Regulation 13 of the Management Regulations requires adequate health and safety training when someone starts and when their risks increase. Our guide to health and safety training for employees covers that duty in full.

Regulation 12 of COSHH is the most specific. Any employee liable to be exposed must get "suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training". It must include the significant findings of your risk assessment and the precautions people need to take. The same duty covers anyone, employee or not, who carries out work connected to your COSHH duties.

L8's Code text says the people appointed to assess the risk and run the precautions need the ability, experience, instruction, information, training and resources to do it competently. HSE's guidance in L8 adds that people carrying out the control measures "must be properly trained" to a safe, technically competent level, with regular refresher training on record.

HSE's technical guidance, HSG274, says inadequate management, lack of training and poor communication can contribute to outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease.

The duty to train is law, but a legionella awareness course isn't. No Act or regulation names a legionella course, a syllabus, a certificate or a training provider. The law demands training that's adequate for each person's role, and HSE's guidance describes what adequate looks like.

L8 also carries weight in court. Its Code text has a special legal status, so if you're prosecuted and didn't follow it, you have to show you complied some other way.

The cost of getting this wrong is on record. In August 2002, an outbreak at a council-owned arts and leisure centre in Barrow-in-Furness killed 7 people and made 180 ill. HSE's report into the outbreak lists inadequate training and resources as one of six failures behind it.

Dutyholder, responsible person and the people who work on the system

HSE's guidance names three roles, and most sites add contractors. Each needs a different level of knowledge.

The responsible person can be you, one or more of your workers, or someone from outside your business.

Role	Who it is	What they need
Dutyholder	The employer, a self-employed person, or whoever controls the premises or system, such as a landlord	To know their duty, and to make sure whoever assesses the risk is competent. They can assess it themselves if they're competent to
Responsible person	A competent person with "sufficient authority, competence, necessary skills, knowledge of the system, and experience"	Enough to take day-to-day charge of controlling the risk. HSE expects suitable training and regular refreshers
Staff who work on or near the system	Anyone whose work could expose themselves or others, such as caretakers, cleaners and maintenance staff	The risks, your risk assessment's significant findings and the precautions they must take
Contractors	Outside firms doing water treatment or other work on the system	You should check they're competent. Hiring them doesn't hand over your responsibility

Roles from HSE's legionella pages, L8 and COSHH, accurate as of October 2026.

For most of your staff, that means awareness training plus a briefing on your own site's findings.

What legionella awareness training covers, and who it suits

An awareness course teaches staff to spot the conditions HSE lists as risk factors, such as water held between 20°C and 45°C, stored or still water, scale and sludge that feed bacteria, and outlets that spray, like showers.

Our Legionella Awareness Training Online Course covers managing and preventing legionella in water systems such as tanks, cooling towers and pipework. It teaches learners how to identify risks and put control measures in place. The course page also sets out the employer's duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act and COSHH.

The page names facilities managers, health and safety managers and maintenance staff as its audience, plus trades such as plumbers, electricians and roofers. There are no entry requirements. It runs fully online, on a computer, tablet or phone, at the learner's own pace, and takes 2 to 3 hours. You get three months from purchase to finish, and you can retake the course and test as often as you need in that time. Learners who pass get an e-certificate the same day.

For a caretaker who flushes little-used outlets, or a plumber working in your plant room, that's usually the right level, with your site briefing on top. For the responsible person on a site with cooling towers, it's only a starting point.

What an awareness course won't do for you

It won't carry out your risk assessment. HSE says that's your responsibility, and if you aren't competent to do it, you should get help from someone who is. Staff training is just one line on HSE's list of what the assessment should include.

It won't make anyone the responsible person. You appoint them, and HSE wants authority, experience and knowledge of the system as well as training. A certificate shows someone learned the basics. It doesn't show they know your pipework or have the authority to take an outlet out of use.

It won't brief people on your building. A general course can't know about your little-used outlets or the dead legs in your pipework, the lengths of pipe where water sits still. COSHH says training must cover your risk assessment's findings, so you add that through a site briefing.

And it won't meet L8 on its own. L8 asks for a risk assessment, a written control scheme, monitoring, records and regular reviews. Training supports all of those. It replaces none of them.

A certificate is quick, and it looks like evidence. But HSE's landlord guidance spells out the test that matters. If a tenant catches Legionnaires' disease, the landlord could be prosecuted under the 1974 Act and would have to show a court they'd met their duty.

Landlords often need less than they think. HSE says most can assess the risk themselves without professional training or accreditation, and the law doesn't require a "legionella test certificate".

How to train a whole team

Start with your risk assessment. List who does what in the control scheme, from flushing outlets to checking temperatures. Then match each person to the level their role needs.

For the staff who need awareness training, the course page has a "For my team" option. You choose the number of places and enrol the team in one order.

A few rules go with team training.

• Run it in working hours, as regulation 13 of the Management Regulations requires.
• Don't charge employees for training the law requires. Under section 9 of the 1974 Act, an employer can't pass on to staff the cost of anything a specific legal requirement makes it do or provide.
• Add your site briefing. Walk each person through the findings of your risk assessment and the checks they own.
• Keep records. HSE's guidance in L8 says to record all initial and refresher training.

Work on drinking water supply has its own scheme, the National Water Hygiene card, often called the Blue Card. It's separate from legionella training, and our guide to the EUSR water hygiene card explains it.

How often to refresh legionella training

No law or HSE document sets a fixed number of years. If a course quotes a set interval, that's the provider's policy, not an HSE rule.

What HSE does say is that the people who carry out the control measures should get "regular refresher training". HSG274 repeats that for the responsible person. Regulation 13 says training should be repeated periodically where appropriate.

Set your own timetable, and refresh when something changes. These triggers come from the law and L8's reasons to review a risk assessment.

• A new starter, or someone moving into a role with water duties.
• Changes to the water system, or to how the building is used.
• A change of responsible person, or of other staff with water duties.
• Checks showing the controls aren't working.
• A case of Legionnaires' disease linked to the system.

Write the timetable into your risk assessment, which HSE says should cover the competence and training of the people running the scheme.

Where to start with legionella awareness training

What protects people is a current risk assessment, a named responsible person and staff who know your system. A certificate on file proves only part of the last one. Get the first two in place, then train the people who carry out the checks and brief them on your site. Our Legionella Awareness Training Online Course covers the awareness level, for one person or for the whole team.

Frequently asked questions