Demands for legionnaires’ public inquiry

LAWYERS representing more than 40 people who contracted legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh and Stoke-on-Trent today said recommendations on preventing such outbreaks had “failed” and called for a public inquiry.

More than 100 people acquired the potentially fatal lung disease during the outbreak in the Capital, which saw three people die. Two people died in Stoke-on-Trent following an outbreak thought to be linked to a hot tub.

Clive Garner, of law firm Irwin Mitchell, said that after an outbreak in Barrow-in-Furness ten years ago, recommendations were published on how to prevent another tragedy. “These plans to prevent further outbreaks of the illness have failed and since 2005 the number of reported cases of legionnaires’ disease in England and Wales has been at around 350-400 cases per year. This is an unacceptably high figure.”