What makes a care home legionella risk assessment template different?
On this page
- Why a care home assessment is not a generic assessment
- The sections a care home template must include
- The TMV register: the section generic templates miss entirely
- The void-room protocol: flushing that follows admissions, not the calendar
- What CQC scrutiny means for the document
- From template to a live assessment
- Frequently asked questions
Key points
- A generic template is an indicative starting point, not a finished care home assessment. The care home version adds a vulnerable-resident rating, a TMV register, a void-room flushing protocol, and a CQC-ready evidence structure.
- Every resident outlet needs a mixing valve, and every valve needs to be registered and serviced, because the care home runs hot water for legionella control and safe-to-touch water for scalding protection at the same time.
- HTM 04-01 does not legally bind a care home, but it is the benchmark inspectors reference for vulnerable people, so the template is written to HTM 04-01-adjacent expectations.
- The template records, it never certifies. What satisfies the HSE and the CQC is a suitable, sufficient, implemented assessment backed by consistent records.
- The £29 Pro Pack adds a completed care home worked example and editable documents on top of the free template.
A care home legionella risk assessment template is a standard ACOP L8 template with the sections a residential care setting cannot skip: a vulnerable-resident risk rating, a register of thermostatic mixing valves on every resident outlet, a void-room flushing protocol, and records structured so a CQC inspector can read them. The framework underneath is the same one every duty holder uses, but the document has to work harder because the residents, the plumbing, and the regulator are all different from an ordinary workplace.
This page explains what is different about a care home assessment, the sections a care home template must include that a generic one misses, and how the free template and the Pro Pack fit together. For the wider picture of the duty itself, see legionella risk assessment for care homes and legionella in care homes.
Why a care home assessment is not a generic assessment
Four things separate a care home from the buildings a generic template is written for.
The residents are a high-risk group. Older age, smoking history, weakened immunity, and existing respiratory disease all raise the chance of Legionnaires' disease and of a poor outcome, and a care home concentrates exactly that population. In a generic template the consequence of failure is one line about occupants; in a care home it is the starting assumption that changes how every risk is rated.
The scalding duty runs alongside the legionella duty. Most workplaces can simply run hot water hot. A care home cannot, because water hot enough to control legionella will scald frail skin in seconds. The resolution is a thermostatic mixing valve at every outlet a resident can reach, which means the assessment has to identify, register, and schedule servicing for dozens of valves, not just record a storage temperature.
The CQC reads the paperwork. A second regulator sits on top of the HSE. Water safety maps onto the CQC's safe and well-led key questions, so the assessment and its records are inspection evidence, not just health and safety files. An out-of-date or unimplemented assessment is a finding that can affect a home's rating.
The expectations are HTM 04-01-adjacent. HTM 04-01, the healthcare guidance on safe water, legally binds NHS premises rather than care homes. But when an assessor, an inspector, or a court asks what good looks like around vulnerable people, that is the document they reference. Water safety plan thinking, healthcare-grade valves, and tighter monitoring are the practical result, and a care home template is written with those expectations built in.
The sections a care home template must include
Open a generic template and a care home template side by side and the difference is a set of sections the generic one either omits or reduces to a single line. The table below is the checklist to hold any template against: if a section on the right is blank or missing in the document you are using, it is not yet a care home assessment.
| Section | Generic template | Care home template |
|---|---|---|
| People at risk | One line on occupants and visitors | A vulnerable-resident profile: age, immunity, respiratory health, mobility, and how these raise the consequence rating for every aerosol source |
| Scald and temperature control | Storage and outlet temperatures | A TMV register listing every resident outlet, the valve fitted, its location, its blended delivery temperature, and its service date |
| Flushing | Little-used outlets, weekly | A void-room protocol: flush every outlet when a room falls vacant and again before reoccupation, with a named owner for each shift |
| Aerosol sources | Showers and spray taps | Assisted baths, hydrotherapy equipment, bidets, and any hoist-integrated showering, each assessed as a separate aerosol source |
| Responsibilities | Named responsible person | The full chain: duty holder (the provider), responsible person, registered manager, and a deputy who owns each task on nights and weekends |
| Records and evidence | Log book kept for five years | A CQC-ready evidence structure: current assessment, written scheme, monitoring logs, and remedial actions filed so an inspector can trace one control end to end |
Two of these deserve a closer look, because they are where generic templates most often fall short.
The TMV register: the section generic templates miss entirely
The scald-versus-legionella tension is resolved one outlet at a time. The system stores hot water at 60°C and delivers it at 50°C or above (55°C in healthcare), and then each resident outlet blends that water down to a safe touch temperature through a mixing valve. Health and social care guidance points to about 41°C at washbasins and showers and 44°C at baths. Our pages on balancing scalding risk against legionella and TMV2 versus TMV3 valves explain the temperatures and the valve types in detail.
What this means for the template is that a single note saying "TMVs fitted" is not enough. The assessment needs a register: every valve listed by outlet and room, the blended temperature measured at that outlet, and the date of the last service. Valves are typically serviced every six to twelve months, and a failed or scaled valve is both a scald hazard and a legionella risk, because it encourages staff to turn the system temperature down. TMV servicing is a control task in its own right, and the register is what makes it schedulable and auditable.
The void-room protocol: flushing that follows admissions, not the calendar
Every building has little-used outlets, but a care home creates them on a rolling basis. When a resident leaves, moves room, or is admitted to hospital, their basin, shower, and toilet outlets stop being drawn, sometimes for weeks. Water in those branches stagnates in the growth range while the rest of the home carries on as normal.
A generic template says "flush little-used outlets weekly". A care home template ties flushing to the rhythm of the building: a room is flushed when it falls vacant, weekly while it stands empty, and again before a new resident moves in, each flush run through to temperature and written down with the outlet, the date, and who did it. The flushing schedule belongs in the written scheme of control, and the entries belong in the log book, because an unrecorded flush cannot be evidenced.
Free legionella risk assessment template
A structured Word document following the five-step approach in ACOP L8. Covers risk identification, written scheme, monitoring, and records. If it isn't written down, you can't evidence it.
Follows ACoP L8 and HSG274 Part 2. Free. No spam.
What CQC scrutiny means for the document
A CQC inspector will not culture your water, but they will read your paperwork. The picture they are looking for is a current assessment, a written scheme that matches the actual building, a named responsible person whose tasks happen on every shift, and monitoring records that run without gaps. The failures that get flagged are an assessment left to go stale after a refurbishment, controls written down but never carried out, or a log book that stops mid-year.
This is why the care home template structures records differently from a generic one. Each control is filed so an inspector can pick a task, say weekly void-room flushing, and trace it from the risk that identified it, through the written scheme that schedules it, to the log that proves it happened. That traceability, not the thickness of the folder, is what reads as a well-led home.
A template is only as good as the sections it makes you fill in. For a care home, the test is whether it forces a TMV register, a void-room flushing plan, and a vulnerability rating. If any of those are blank, what you have is a generic assessment with a care home's name on it.
The Pro Pack — £29
The free template gives you the structure. The Pro Pack shows you what good looks like when it is filled in: a completed worked example of a care home risk assessment, written for a residential setting with a TMV register, void-room flushing protocol, and vulnerability rating already drafted, plus the editable Word documents behind it — the assessment, the written scheme of control, and the responsible person appointment — and a care home preset log book for the monitoring records.
Use the worked example to see how each section is answered for a real care home layout, then adapt the editable documents to your own building. It is an indicative starting point and a structure to work from: it records, it never certifies. The assessment of your home still has to be carried out, by you or a specialist, against your actual water system.
Get the Pro Pack →Worked example plus editable documents. One-off purchase.
From template to a live assessment
The template is the container; the assessment is the work. Walk the system, list every outlet and valve, rate each risk against the people who actually live in the home, and set the written scheme and monitoring frequencies the building needs. The free risk assessment builder walks through the same logic step by step and produces a tailored monitoring schedule, and the temperature checker tells you on the spot whether a reading at an outlet is in or out of range.
Whatever route you take, hold the finished document to the checklist in the table above, keep the records running for at least five years, and treat the template for what it is: a way to record and structure the assessment, never a certificate that the work was done.
Free legionella risk assessment template
A structured Word document following the five-step approach in ACOP L8. Covers risk identification, written scheme, monitoring, and records. If it isn't written down, you can't evidence it.
Follows ACoP L8 and HSG274 Part 2. Free. No spam.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a generic legionella risk assessment template for a care home?
You can use one as the skeleton, but not as the finished document. A generic template covers the ACOP L8 basics: the water system description, the risk identification, the written scheme of control, and the records. What it does not contain are the sections a residential care setting cannot skip: a vulnerable-resident risk rating, a register of every thermostatic mixing valve, a void-room flushing protocol, and a responsibility chain that covers every shift. ACOP L8 asks for an assessment that is suitable and sufficient for the actual premises, so a care home needs those sections added and completed.
Does HTM 04-01 apply to care homes?
Not directly. HTM 04-01 is the healthcare technical memorandum on safe water, written for NHS premises, and it does not legally bind a care home. In practice it is the benchmark that assessors, CQC inspectors, and courts reach for when judging water safety around vulnerable people, so care home practice is often described as HTM 04-01-adjacent: water safety plan thinking, healthcare-grade mixing valves, and tighter monitoring than a simple commercial building would run. A good care home template is written with those expectations in mind.
What temperature should hot water be in a care home?
Store hot water at 60°C and distribute it so outlets reach at least 50°C within one minute of running (55°C in healthcare settings), because that heat is the main legionella control. Then, because water that hot would scald a frail resident, every resident outlet blends it down through a thermostatic mixing valve: health and social care guidance points to about 41°C at washbasins and showers and 44°C at baths. The system stays hot behind the valve and safe to touch at the tap, and both sides of that arrangement need to be recorded.
Will the CQC accept a risk assessment I completed myself from a template?
It depends on competence, not on who typed the document. ACOP L8 requires the assessment to be carried out by someone competent, and care homes are complex, high-risk settings with large systems and vulnerable residents, which is why many providers commission a specialist. A template structures the work and records the findings; it never certifies them. What a CQC inspector weighs is whether the assessment is current, suitable and sufficient for the building, and actually implemented, with monitoring records that match what the written scheme says should be happening.
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