Care home fined £5,000 over Legionnaires’ risk
A care home company has been fined £5,000 for failing to have the required precautions in place to control legionella bacteria.
SJ Care Homes Ltd was prosecuted by the HSE after the company failed to comply with an enforcement notice issued at one of its nursing homes.
HSE Inspector, Sandra Tomlinson, issued the notice after a routine visit to Beech House Nursing Home on Yew Tree Lane in Wythenshawe on 24 February 2009. The enforcement notice gave the company six weeks to write a plan for managing the level of legionella bacteria in the care home’s water system. But when the inspector revisited on 6 April 2009, no action had been taken.
After the hearing at Trafford Magistrates’ Court, Ms Tomlinson said:
“It is vital that care homes have plans in place to make sure the level of legionella bacteria in their hot water systems does not become unsafe.
“Legionnaires’ disease is a potentially fatal form of pneumonia, which mainly affects older people and those with poor health.
“Sadly, SJ Care Homes didn’t take this risk seriously and failed to act even when we issued a formal written warning. We therefore had no other choice but to prosecute.”
SJ Care Homes, of Harrow in Middlesex, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 33(1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 by failing to comply with an enforcement notice. The company was ordered to pay £3,607 towards the cost of the prosecution in addition to the fine at Trafford Magistrates’ Court on 7 April 2010.
