Contamination of drinking water is usually man-made and frequently due to inappropriate storage, handling or serving which can lead to the harmful water borne illnesses, such as Legionnaire’s disease. Poor hygiene management such as an unsuitable method of storage, serving or handling can deteriorate the quality of the water, which can potentially be improved by providing water hygiene management training and education to hotels and restaurant owners.
Yearly about two million people die due to lack of basic hygiene related illnesses such as diarrhoea. The World Health Organisation reported that water hygiene management when it comes to on storage as well as handling can affect the quality of our water. Drinking water and its potability in restaurants and hotels is associated with a poor hygiene environment, where Legionella bacteria can thrive. Water can become contaminated by an inappropriate method of collection, serving, storage and handling practices in restaurants and hotels. The enhanced water-handling best practices can truly make a difference by encouraging water hygiene good practices to eventually improve water quality.
Water can actually become contaminated at any stage throughout the process of collection, serving, storage or handling in restaurants and hotels, making is possible for Legionella bacteria to grow and spread. Many hotels do store water that is for drinking purposes in plastic or cement tanks (on the ground or overhead), earthenware and also water coolers etc, without the actual necessary hygienic precautions.
Studies have proved over and over that water storage and handling procedure of water hotels and restaurants can cause a quality deterioration to an extent that the water can and will result in potential risk of infection to water consumers. Due to an inadequate storage and handling of water for drinking purposes in restaurants and hotels people can end up drinking contaminated water with pathogenic microorganisms. Thus it is clear that an inadequate storage, handling and serving will often contaminate the water in restaurants and hotels.
In hotels, it is important to regularly maintain the hygienic conditions to guarantee your customer’s health, and if the personnel or members of the staff are not sufficiently trained then providing them with a thorough programme of Legionella training and water hygiene is a must.
The main risk factors that can contribute to restaurants, hotels and pubs being exposed to Legionella bacteria and legionnaires disease include public-facing water systems like sinks, toilets and washing facilities. And also the management of several sites across the United Kingdom, because such chains need to consider the exposure to risk from Legionella to members of their staff, visitors and clients from kitchen areas, staff areas as well as customer areas like toilets. For Legionella management purposes, the hot water need to be stored at sixty degrees Celsius and supplied to sinks at a range between fifty to sixty degrees, which is scalding temperature. It is strongly advised that public facing areas where vulnerable people can use the facilities should be protected from scalding through the installation of anti-scalding valves.
The poor domestic hygiene behaviours can be interpreted as an actual increased awareness towards maintaining properness and cleanliness in a truly more hygienic condition. In case of withdrawing water, the hotel manager or the actual worker who is taking care of the task shouldn’t dip his/her hands. Poor hygiene behaviours like an inadequate storage method, serving or handling can deteriorate the quality of the water, which can eventually be improved by training the hotel and restaurant owner.
