Guide · Health & Safety
What a UK site safety inspection must cover, a practical template for H&S consultants and construction firms, and why WhatsApp-based reporting beats paper and apps on completion rate.
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The law
CDM 2015 requires inspections by a competent person. The format is not prescribed, but the record must evidence what was checked. At minimum: site and address, date and time, inspector name and role, weather, worker count, items inspected and their condition, hazards found, actions required by whom and by when, and a signature. Timestamped photos make the record far more defensible.
The real problem
Every H&S manager who rolls out an inspection app sees the same pattern: high usage for three weeks, then forms filled in the site office at day's end. That is friction, not laziness. Logins, installs and template hunting do not survive 7am on site with gloves on. Paper fails too: wet clipboards, dead pens, forms left in the van.
How Quickler runs it
The inspector replies OK, issue, or a photo. Flag an issue and they are asked for a photo and one line describing it. No login, no app, the session is already open.
Results land on the dashboard in real time, defects surface as red items, and the completed report generates as a PDF.
Try it
H&S consultants and construction firms use Quickler for higher on-site completion. No app install. No training. Free trial.
Three weeks after any inspection app goes live, the same thing happens. Usage holds, then it slides. By month three the forms are filled in the site office at day's end, not on site where the hazards are. That is not laziness. It is friction, and friction is the whole game.
Here is what a UK site safety inspection must actually cover, a template you can use today, and why the report method that wins runs in an app every engineer already has open.
The job
A site safety inspection is a structured walkround of a construction or work site to find hazards, test controls, and record what you find. The inspector checks whether conditions on the ground match what the risk assessment and method statements demand.
Under CDM 2015, the principal contractor plans, manages, monitors and coordinates construction phase health and safety. Regular inspections are how that monitoring is evidenced. The competent person doing the walkround needs real knowledge of the specific hazards on that site.
This is not a box-ticking ritual. It is how problems get found before someone is hurt. A form completed from memory in the site office tells you one thing only: the form got completed.
The record
CDM 2015 and general health and safety law do not mandate a fixed format. But the record must be enough to show a competent person visited, checked specific matters, and logged what they found. At minimum:
Timestamped photos lift the record sharply. An inspector who notes "scaffold boarding defective at grid C3" and attaches a photo has a far more defensible record than one who notes it with nothing to back it.
The template
Items to run on a standard walkround, grouped the way an inspector moves through a site.
Access and egress. Entrances and exits clear and signed. Pedestrian routes segregated from plant. Emergency routes unobstructed.
Working at height. Scaffolding condition, ties, boards, guard rails, toe boards. Ladders footed and tied. MEWP condition and operator competence. Edge protection and fragile-surface precautions in place.
Plant and equipment. Inspection records current, operators competent, no unauthorised modifications, exclusion zones held.
Welfare. Toilets, hot and cold washing, separate eating area, stocked first aid.
Housekeeping, PPE, fire. Site tidy, COSHH substances stored correctly, PPE worn and sound, extinguishers in date, hot works permits in use.
Documentation. Construction phase plan accessible, RAMS current, and any RIDDOR reportable incidents since the last inspection.
The real problem
Every H&S manager who has rolled out an inspection app has watched the same curve. Tool configured, team trained, usage high for three weeks. Then it drops. By month three the forms get filled in the site office, not on site.
This is friction, not laziness. An app makes the inspector unlock their phone, open it, find the template, log in again, and navigate to the right question. At 7am with a helmet on and gloves in hand, that does not happen. Paper fails the same way: wet clipboard, dead pen, form left in the van.
The tool with the highest on-site completion rate is the one already open. For most UK field workers, that is WhatsApp.
The fix
The inspector receives the workflow in WhatsApp at the start of the visit. Each item is one message. They reply OK, issue, or attach a photo. Flag an issue and they are asked for a photo and one line describing it. No login. No app. The session is already open.
The office sees results live on the dashboard, defects surface as red items the instant they are flagged, and the completed report generates as a PDF. The workflow is built during onboarding from the firm's own checklist, so a CDM-specific checklist becomes the workflow. Different sites can run different workflows.
Scope note. Quickler covers the inspection walkround and report. It does not replace a full H&S management system, a construction phase plan, or RIDDOR reporting. Those are separate obligations. Ask us how it fits alongside your existing H&S documentation, or see how Quickler works in any country.
CDM 2015 requires inspections by a competent person. The record should include the site and location, date and time, who carried out the inspection, what was checked, what was found, any action taken, and any further action needed. Check current HSE guidance for the requirements applicable to your type of work and site.
Frequency depends on the work and the risk. Scaffold inspections under CDM 2015 must occur before first use, after any event that may have affected stability, and at intervals not exceeding seven days. General site safety inspections are typically weekly for active construction sites. The required frequency for your site should be set by the principal contractor's risk assessment.
Yes. The record can be completed on any device. What matters is that it is done on site, during the inspection, not reconstructed afterwards. Tools that run in WhatsApp get higher on-site completion rates because there is nothing to install and no login to remember.
CDM 2015 requires a competent person: someone with sufficient training, experience and knowledge to identify hazards relevant to the work. This is a judgement about relevant competence, not a specific qualification. Refer to current HSE guidance and your organisation's competency framework.
Construction and site safety