What a site safety inspection must cover under UK law, a practical template for H&S consultants and construction firms, and how WhatsApp-based reporting solves the completion rate problem that paper and apps both struggle with.
A site safety inspection is a structured walkround of a construction or work site to identify hazards, assess controls, and record findings. The inspector checks whether the physical conditions on site match what the risk assessment and method statements require.
Under CDM 2015, the principal contractor is responsible for planning, managing, monitoring, and coordinating construction phase health and safety. Regular inspections are how that monitoring is evidenced. The competent person carrying out the inspection should be someone with sufficient knowledge of the specific hazards present on that site.
The inspection is not a compliance exercise. It is the mechanism by which problems are found before someone is hurt. A form completed from memory in the site office afterwards tells you nothing useful. It tells you the form was completed.
CDM 2015 and general health and safety law do not prescribe a specific report format, but the record should be sufficient to show that a competent person visited the site, checked specific matters, and recorded what they found.
At minimum, a site safety inspection report should include:
Photos with timestamps strengthen the record significantly. An inspector who notes "scaffold boarding defective at grid C3" and attaches a photo has created a much more defensible record than one who notes it without evidence.
Access and egress
Working at height
Plant and equipment
Welfare
Housekeeping
PPE
Fire
Documentation
Every H&S manager who has rolled out an inspection app has encountered the same pattern. The tool is configured. The team is trained. Usage is high for three weeks. Then it drops. By month three, the forms are being completed in the site office at the end of the day rather than on site during the walkround.
This is not laziness. It is friction. An inspection app requires the inspector to unlock their phone, open the app, find the correct template, log in if the session has expired, and navigate to the right question. At 7am on a construction site with a safety helmet on and gloves in hand, this is not what happens.
Paper has the same problem. The clipboard gets wet. The pen runs out. The form is left in the van.
The tool that gets the highest on-site completion rate is the one the inspector already has open. For most UK field workers, that is WhatsApp. Quickler sends the inspection workflow as a WhatsApp conversation. The inspector replies to messages. text, voice note, or photo. No login. No app. The session is already open.
The inspector receives the site inspection workflow in WhatsApp at the start of their visit. Each item is a single message. they reply OK, issue, or attach a photo. If they flag an issue, they are asked for a photo and one line describing it. The office sees the results live on the dashboard. The completed report generates as a PDF.
The workflow is built during onboarding from the firm's existing checklist. If the firm has a CDM-specific checklist already in use, that becomes the workflow. Different sites or project types can have different workflows.
Defects appear on the dashboard as red items. The manager does not need to read every report to know that something was flagged on a visit. The red item is surfaced immediately.
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 specific requirements applicable to your type of work and site.
Frequency depends on the work and the risk level. 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 specific site should be determined by the principal contractor's risk assessment.
Yes. The record can be completed on any device. What matters is that it is completed on site, during the inspection, not reconstructed afterwards. Tools that run in WhatsApp have higher on-site completion rates because there is nothing to install and no login to remember. the inspector uses the same app they use for everything else.
CDM 2015 requires a competent person. someone with sufficient training, experience, and knowledge to identify hazards relevant to the work being done. This is a judgement about relevant competence, not a specific qualification. Refer to current HSE guidance and your organisation's competency framework for the definition appropriate to your context.
H&S consultants and construction firms use Quickler to get higher on-site completion rates. No app install. No training. Free trial.