A safety audit is a full health and safety inspection of the workplace in order to ensure that the controls you have identified in a risk assessment are being adhered to and to identify problems before they occur, such as the prevention of accidents.
These audits may be held once a year or once a month; there are no strict guidelines. It will depend on a number of issues such as changes in systems and/or personnel or an increase in accidents or near misses.
Who to Involve
Management will have the means to put things right and supervisors and shop floor staff will be able to contribute. Safety representatives should also be consulted.
Types of Audit
There are generally 2 types of health and safety audit:
- A walk through audit which may include identifying what can be seen, such as trailing cable across a floor, blocked fire exits, operation of equipment without a guard or excessive speed in which fork-lift trucks are driven or
- A management audit of systems, processes and health effects which will include a degree of foresight about what could happen such as collapse of shelving, carbon monoxide effects from unchecked gas supplies or lone working.
What to look for
This will depend on your organisation and the premises. You should look at risk assessments to check controls. Use a simple list, which you may need to expand or delete irrelevant issues.
It is important to act on the areas identified as requiring attention, especially those that are urgent. Auditing does not replace the need for people to report faults or health and safety concerns.
You can download the Self audit checklist [PDF] (62k), or contact us a for a copy or more information:
Environmental Health and Licensing Services
Guildford Borough Council
Millmead House
Millmead
Guildford
GU2 4BB
Tel: 01483 444371
Fax: 01483 444546
Email: environmentalhealth@guildford.gov.uk