The Practice Water Quality Checklist

I have spent more than seventeen years on the front desk of health practices, most recently as PA to a paediatrician. I am also the mum of two neurodivergent boys, so I have sat on both sides of that desk.

This is not a guide about treating anything. It is a guide about the ordinary, unglamorous, easy to overlook things sitting in the corner of your waiting room and in your patients' kitchens. None of it is complicated. Most of it just never gets checked, because it is nobody's job to check it.

One

You probably do not know what is in your local supply

Australian drinking water is treated to meet the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, and by world standards it is very good. It is also not identical everywhere. Disinfection is usually chlorine or chloramine depending on the network, most capital city supplies are fluoridated while some regional supplies are not, and hardness varies enormously between catchments.

Your water utility publishes an annual water quality report for your area, free, no login. Most practitioners have never read the one for their own suburb. It takes about ten minutes and it tells you exactly what your patients are drinking.

Worth doingSearch your utility's name plus "annual water quality report" and read the section for your supply zone.

Two

The supply is only as good as the pipe it arrives through

Water can leave the treatment plant in excellent condition and still pick things up on the way to your tap. The variables are the age of your building, the plumbing materials in it, and how long water sits still inside those pipes.

This matters most in older buildings and in taps that are rarely used. A consulting room basin that runs twice a week, or a kitchen tap after a long weekend, holds water that has been sitting in the line for days. The standard advice is simply to run the tap for thirty seconds before drinking or filling anything, especially first thing Monday.

Worth doingIdentify the taps in your practice that get used least, and flush them before they fill a glass or a jug.

Three

Nobody remembers when the filter was last changed

If you have a filter jug, a plumbed in filter, a water cooler or a fridge dispenser, it has a service interval. Almost every practice I have worked in has had one of these. Almost none of them had a written schedule for it.

A filter past its interval is not doing the job you are paying it to do. Coolers and dispensers also have a reservoir and a drip tray, both of which need cleaning on a schedule, not when someone notices.

Worth doingPut a sticker on every filter with the date it was last changed and the date it is next due. Add it to whoever handles your practice maintenance list.

Four

The bottled water in the waiting room is a running cost nobody has audited

Plenty of practices hand out single use bottles. It is a real line item and it is worth seeing the actual annual number, because most people have never added it up. There is also the waste, which increasingly matters to patients, and the storage question, since cartons often sit in hot store rooms or car boots for weeks before anyone drinks them.

This one is not about right or wrong. It is about knowing the number before you decide whether you are happy with it.

Worth doingMultiply your weekly bottle spend by fifty two. Sit with whatever that number turns out to be.

Five

You never see the kitchen your advice goes home to

This is the one I care about most, and it is the one my own family taught me rather than my career.

A patient can leave your rooms with excellent advice and walk into a house where the practical reality is completely different to what you pictured. What they drink, what is in the cupboard, what the household routine actually looks like at half past six on a weeknight with two tired kids. You do not see any of it, and most patients will not volunteer it, because they assume it is not what you asked about.

The gap between clinical knowledge and real life is not a failure on anyone's part. It is just a gap. It closes a little every time somebody asks a question about the ordinary parts of the day.

Worth doingAdd one open question to your intake: "What does a normal day of drinks look like in your house?" Then listen to the answer without correcting it.

The five minute practice audit

Print this page, walk your rooms, tick as you go.

I have read my utility's most recent water quality report for my supply zone

I know how old this building's plumbing is, or I know who to ask

I have identified the taps that sit unused for days at a time

Every filter in the practice has a visible last changed and next due date

The cooler or dispenser reservoir and drip tray are on a cleaning schedule

I know what we spend on bottled water in a year, as an actual figure

I know where our bottled stock is stored and how long it sits there

Someone is named as responsible for all of the above, by name, not by role

My intake includes at least one open question about daily household routine

Why I put this together

I am not a clinician and I am not pretending to be one. What I have is seventeen years of watching how practices actually run from the front desk, and a house where I have tested the domestic end of it on my own family.

I am not here to replace anything you do. I am interested in the handover point, where clinical knowledge meets the kitchen it goes home to, because I think that is where a lot of good advice quietly falls over.

If any of this was useful, or if you want to talk about what you are seeing in your own rooms, I would genuinely like to hear from you.

Tash

This checklist is general information about practice maintenance and household routine. It is not medical advice, it does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition, and it is not a substitute for professional judgement. Water quality standards referenced are the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Always refer to your own water utility's published reports for your specific supply zone.