Health & safety walk-round checklist

What you need to know

The plain-English guidance that comes with this document.

• This is the habit that ties it all together. You can have every policy and assessment in the folder and still have a blocked fire exit on a Tuesday. A regular walk-round is how you check that what's written down is actually happening on the floor. It's not a legal requirement in itself, but it's how you meet the ones that are.
• Do it regularly, and actually walk the floor. Monthly suits most small businesses; busier or higher-risk places might do it weekly. The point is to physically look — open the cupboard, try the fire door, check the kit — not to tick boxes at a desk.
• The actions list is what matters. Spotting a problem and not fixing it is worse than not looking. Put a name and a date against each action, and check them off next time. A run of walk-rounds with the same unfixed action tells its own story.
• Take someone with you sometimes. A fresh pair of eyes — a member of staff, or swapping with another area — spots things you've stopped noticing. And it shows the team safety is taken seriously.
• Keep the completed sheets. They're a simple, dated record that you actively manage health & safety — genuinely useful if there's ever an incident, an insurance question or a client audit. File them with your other H&S records.
• Tailor the list to you. These are the common ones; add checks specific to your trade (your risk assessment will show what), and drop any that don't apply. A kitchen adds gas and hot surfaces; a workshop adds machine guards and dust extraction.
• Applies UK-wide. Good practice everywhere; it supports your duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSE) and the equivalent Northern Ireland Order (HSENI).