From the driver's walkaround to the monthly extinguisher glance, most workplace checks are short, repetitive and easy to lose on paper. UserChecks gives every one of them an owner, a schedule and a record.
We catalogued the routine checks UK workplaces run on equipment, vehicles, premises and systems. Almost none of them need specialist kit. Nearly all of them need proof they happened.
UserChecks covers the daily, pre-use and walkaround end of that list — the checks your own people do. Where an asset also carries a statutory thorough examination or calibration, that stays with a competent person; UserChecks holds the routine record that sits alongside it.
A note on wording. Some of these intervals are set in law, many are HSE or British Standard guidance. We say which.
Every check on this page runs the same way — scan the QR tag, work through the checklist, sign it off. See how UserChecks works.
In the "Why it matters" notes below: Acts, regulations and orders are set in law; HSE codes, British Standards and industry guidance are guidance.
Across the more than 120 routine UK workplace checks we catalogued, most are pre-use or daily — exactly the checks that get missed on paper, and exactly the ones an inspector asks to see.
Paper walkaround pads live in the cab, get rained on, and only surface when DVSA asks for six months of them. A missed defect on a tyre or a coupling is the one that ends up in court.
DVSA's daily walkaround guidance and the operator licence undertakings expect a dated, retained defect report for every vehicle, every day. Road Traffic Act 1988 s.40A makes using a vehicle in a dangerous condition an offence in its own right. Tail lifts and wheelchair lifts lift people or loads, so the 6-monthly LOLER thorough examination by a competent person still applies — UserChecks holds the daily record that sits alongside it.
A QR sticker in the cab opens that vehicle's walkaround. Five outcomes, mandatory notes on anything that isn't a pass, signature captured.
Forklifts and MEWPs get their statutory exam diarised and their daily check forgotten. The gap between those two dates is where the incident happens.
PUWER 1998 requires work equipment to be maintained in efficient working order; HSE's own guidance (INDG317 for lift trucks) sets the pre-use check as the practical way to do that, risk-based rather than at a fixed legal interval. Separately, LOLER 1998 reg.9 is hard law: 6 months for anything that lifts people, 12 months for loads only, unless a written scheme says otherwise. That examination needs a competent person — UserChecks records the daily side, not the exam.
Per-item schedules with overdue checks surfaced automatically, so a forklift that missed Monday is visible on Monday.
Guards come off for one awkward job and stay off. Nobody logs it, because there's nothing to log it on.
PUWER 1998 regs 5 and 11 make maintenance and effective guarding a legal duty — a missing guard run after run is a pre-use failure, not something a yearly inspection catches. DSEAR 2002 covers cylinder storage and welding sets. Pressure vessels fall under PSSR 2000, which sets no fixed interval at all: the written scheme of examination does, carried out by a competent person. The daily walk round the compressor is yours; the vessel examination isn't.
Custom check definitions per item type, so a grinder, a saw and a compressor each get the questions that actually apply.
Harnesses and ladders fail quietly. Webbing frays, a stile cracks, a mask seal perishes — and the only check that would have caught it is the one the user does before putting it on.
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 make pre-use checks of access equipment a duty, and require a detailed periodic inspection whose frequency comes from your risk assessment — HSE gives no single legal number. The PPE at Work Regulations 1992/2022 require equipment to be maintained and in good repair. Under COSHH 2002, RPE without a current face-fit test isn't adequate control; the commonly-cited 2-yearly retest is guidance, not statute, and higher-risk work is often more frequent.
Tag each harness, ladder and tower with its own QR code — the user scans the item they're actually about to use.
The fire log book lives in a cupboard, gets filled in three months at a time, and convinces nobody — least of all a fire officer who can see the wedge under the fire door.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts a statutory duty on the responsible person to maintain fire safety equipment and keep escape routes clear. How often mostly comes from British Standards — BS 5306-3 for extinguishers, BS 5839-1 for alarms, BS 5266 for emergency lighting, BS EN 12845 for sprinklers — which are codes of practice, not statute. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 add specific fire-door duties in higher-risk residential buildings. Annual servicing and full-duration tests stay with a competent engineer.
The compliance dashboard shows fire checks per location, so a site that's stopped testing its alarm is obvious this week, not at the next audit.
Most electrical faults are visible before they're dangerous — a split cable, a scorched plug, a daisy-chained extension lead. Nobody writes them down, so nobody fixes them.
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems to be maintained so far as is reasonably practicable to prevent danger — that part is law. The frequency isn't: HSG107 explicitly killed the "annual PAT test" and replaced it with a risk-based schedule, commonly anywhere from 6-monthly to 4-yearly depending on the equipment and environment. The six-monthly RCD press comes from BS 7671 (changed from quarterly in the 2022 amendment), an industry standard. Formal testing and the fixed-wiring EICR need a qualified electrician.
The user check and the formal test are different jobs. UserChecks logs the first one properly, with the photo evidence attached.
Legionella control is mostly a handful of two-minute jobs done relentlessly. The record of them being done is what the HSE inspector asks for first.
The duty sits under COSHH 2002 and the ACOP L8 / HSG274 control scheme, which is statutory in effect — an approved code of practice has special legal status. The temperatures and intervals above come from HSG274 Part 2. Annual tank inspections, calorifier checks, thermostatic mixing valve servicing and the two-yearly risk assessment review all need a competent person or water hygiene contractor.
Weekly and monthly schedules per outlet, with a missed-reason capture when a flush can't be done — so gaps are explained, not blank.
Racking damage is usually visible for weeks before anyone reports it. Loading bay near-misses are usually invisible until a trailer moves.
Racking sits under PUWER 1998 reg.5's duty to maintain — the weekly/monthly staff inspection and the annual survey come from the SEMA code of practice, an industry standard rather than legislation. HSE's workplace transport guidance HSG136 covers loading bay separation and restraint. The annual SEMA-approved racking survey still needs an approved inspector; the routine staff walk is the bit that catches damage in time to tag it.
Multi-location setup rolls every depot's racking and dock checks into one summary grid, per site.
Temperature logs and COSHH store walks are the checks auditors go to first, because they're the easiest to have quietly stopped doing.
Food temperature control is a statutory duty under the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, evidenced through your HACCP records. COSHH 2002 requires control measures to be maintained, and the Control of Pollution (Oil Storage) Regulations 2001 cover bunding. Fume cupboards are local exhaust ventilation: the 14-monthly statutory thorough examination under COSHH reg.9 needs a competent LEV examiner — the daily airflow check doesn't.
Numeric readings, photo evidence and a named signature on every record — the shape an EHO or COSHH audit expects.
The building's own safety kit belongs to everyone, which usually means nobody. First-aid kits run down, alarms go untested, backups quietly stop completing.
The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require adequate provision — monthly stock checks are HSE-aligned good practice rather than a stated interval. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 cover welfare facilities, lighting and DSE workstations sit under the DSE Regulations 1992. Alarm and door intervals come from BS EN 50131 and BS EN 16005, and often from your insurer. AEDs, UPS units and server-room monitoring have no HSE hook at all — treat those as operational risk management, not compliance.
Roles and permissions mean the first-aider, the facilities lead and IT each see their own round, on their own phone.
Every workplace has its own list. MOT bays run a daily zero and leak check on the emissions analyser. Fleet workshops check jacks before the car goes up. If it's a check a person does on a schedule, you can define it in UserChecks and put a QR code on it.
Tag your first items, build the checklists that match your kit, and have a signed record from day one.
