Start with the part most nursery guidance skips: a room of healthy under-fives is not the group Legionnaires’ disease targets. The illness overwhelmingly affects older adults, smokers, and people with weakened immune systems or long-term lung conditions. It is uncommon in otherwise well young children [1].
So why does a nursery have to bother? Because the legal duty to assess and control Legionella does not flex to the age of the people in the building. It falls on the employer and on whoever is in control of the premises, under the Health and Safety at Work Act and the COSHH Regulations — the same duty an office or a workshop carries [2].
That is the awkward gap early years settings live in: low clinical risk to the children, full legal duty on the provider. Treat it as nothing because “it’s only kids” and you breach the duty. Over-spend on sampling you don’t need and you’ve missed the point the other way. The sensible posture is proportionate — assess the premises, control the few things that actually matter, write it down, and make sure scald-prevention isn’t quietly building the problem it is meant to avoid.
Where the real risk actually sits
A nursery is rarely empty of susceptible adults. Staff returning from illness, a grandparent on pick-up duty, a pregnant key worker, a parent recovering from chemotherapy — these are the people for whom an aerosol of contaminated water could matter, and they move through the same building as the children. Who is most at risk of Legionnaires’ disease? sets out exactly which groups are vulnerable [1]. The control measures are not for the children’s sake alone, and that reframing — proportionate protection of the adults on site, plus a duty that simply applies — is the honest reason to act, rather than scaring anyone about the toddlers.
The mistakes early years settings keep making
Treating “low risk to children” as “no duty”
What it looks like: no written risk assessment at all, on the logic that a nursery is harmless. Childminders are especially prone to it, assuming a family home is exempt.
Why it happens: the clinical risk to the children gets confused with the legal duty. The duty is not a prediction of who will fall ill; it is an obligation to understand and control the water system [2].
The fix: get a proportionate Legionella risk assessment done for the premises by a competent person. For a small setting on a mains supply with no cooling tower, no spa pool and simple hot water, that assessment may be short — but it has to exist, be acted on, and be reviewed when things change [3]. For childminders, the moment you mind children for payment your home is also a workplace, and the duty comes with it. The wider education estate carries the same obligation, covered in Managing Legionella in schools and universities.
Turning the hot water down to protect little hands
What it looks like: the cylinder thermostat wound down to a “safe” setting, or blending valves delivering tepid water across the whole building so nothing ever feels properly hot.
Why it happens: scald-prevention is a genuine and correct duty in a nursery. Thermostatic mixing valves (TMVs) blend hot water down to a safe temperature at basins small children can reach. The trouble is that blended water sits inside the 20–45°C band where Legionella multiplies fastest, so if the whole system is run cool to achieve a safe tap, the stored and distributed water turns into a warm reservoir [4].
The fix: keep storage hot and distribution hot, and blend down only at the point of use. Store hot, distribute hot, blend at the tap. The TMV and the short length of blended pipe beyond it then become the one warm spot to manage — kept clean, serviced, and not left to feed a basin nobody touches. Care homes wrestle with the same scald-versus-Legionella tension, only there the residents genuinely are high-risk; Legionella management in care homes and assisted living goes deeper on getting that balance right.
Leaving water play standing between sessions
What it looks like: a water tray topped up and left for days, a sand-and-water station sitting in a warm playroom, a paddling pool half full overnight through a summer week.
Why it happens: nobody files the water table under “water system”. It is a toy, not plumbing.
The fix: empty, clean and dry water play equipment between sessions, and fill paddling pools fresh each time rather than topping up yesterday’s. Standing water warming in a sunny room is exactly the condition the bacteria need; tipping it out daily removes the problem before it starts [4]. This one costs a minute and a habit, and the return is out of all proportion to the effort.
Reopening after the holidays without flushing
What it looks like: the setting closes for two weeks at Christmas or across summer, then opens on Monday with taps run straight into the morning routine.
Why it happens: closures are normal in early years, but flushing rarely makes it onto the reopening checklist.
The fix: before children return after any extended closure, flush every outlet — taps, any showers, the nappy-change spray, the outdoor tap — to displace water that has sat stagnant [4]. For long shutdowns, flushing partway through the break stops the system stagnating in the first place. Schools and universities face the identical term-holiday pattern, so their reopening procedures are worth borrowing wholesale.
Forgetting the outlets nobody uses
What it looks like: an outdoor tap used twice a summer for water play, a staff kitchen one person visits, a spare toilet in a rarely-opened room.
Why it happens: out of sight, off the rota. The busy outlets flush themselves through daily use; the quiet ones never do.
The fix: list the little-used outlets and flush them weekly, or remove any pipework that genuinely serves nothing. A rarely-run tap is a small dead leg of stagnant water quietly feeding the rest of the system [4]. The outdoor tap that only sees daylight in July is the classic offender.
Doing it once and filing it
What it looks like: a risk assessment completed at registration, slid into the Ofsted folder, and never opened again. Flushing done “when someone remembers”.
Why it happens: small teams, high turnover, and a compliance-folder mindset that treats safety as a document to produce rather than a routine to run.
The fix: turn the controls into a dated, recorded routine — temperature checks, weekly flushing of low-use outlets, periodic TMV checks, each with a date and an initial against it. Review the assessment whenever the building changes: a new sink, a refurbished baby room, a change of use. Records are not bureaucracy here; they are the only evidence you controlled the risk, and they outlast staff coming and going [3].
The single fix that pays back most
If you change one thing this term, make it this: stop achieving “child-safe” water by running the whole system tepid. Store hot, distribute hot, and blend down only at the taps the children actually touch. That one decision drains the warm reservoir every other mistake on this list feeds from — and a weekly flush of the quiet outlets, logged with a date, keeps it drained.
This is general guidance, not a risk assessment for your nursery. Which controls you need, at what temperatures and how often, are judgements for a competent person looking at your actual building and its water system; we don’t give legal, medical or design advice. What sits with you today is simpler — find out whether your hot water is genuinely stored hot and only blended at the tap, and whether anyone has flushed that outdoor tap since last summer. The kind of weekly flush-and-check that is easy to forget is exactly the recurring task a digital record keeps visible, so a closed-down July does not become a stagnant September.
FAQ
Do nurseries legally need a Legionella risk assessment?
Yes. The duty to assess and control Legionella applies to employers and anyone in control of premises regardless of the occupants’ age, so a nursery needs an assessment carried out by a competent person [2]. For a simple, low-complexity setting on a mains supply with no cooling tower or spa, the assessment may be brief — but it has to exist, be acted on, and be reviewed when the building or its use changes [3].
Is Legionella dangerous to babies and young children?
Legionnaires’ disease is uncommon in otherwise healthy young children; it mainly affects older adults, smokers, and people with weakened immunity or chronic lung disease [1]. The reason a nursery still controls it is the legal duty and the susceptible adults on site — staff, parents and grandparents — rather than a high clinical risk to the children themselves.
How should a childminder manage Legionella at home?
When you mind children for payment, your home also counts as a workplace, so the duty applies to you. For a typical domestic system on mains water the practical controls are modest: keep hot water hot and cold water cold, flush little-used taps and everything after a holiday away, don’t leave water play standing, and keep a simple dated record [2][4].
Sources
[1] NHS, “Legionnaires’ disease”. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/legionnaires-disease/ [2] HSE, “Legionnaires’ disease - what you must do”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/what-you-must-do/index.htm [3] HSE, “Legionnaires’ disease. The control of legionella bacteria in water systems - Approved Code of Practice and guidance (L8)”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l8.htm [4] HSE, “Hot and cold water systems”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/hot-and-cold.htm