Inspections and Visits

We are the health and safety enforcing authority for a wide range of workplaces and premises including:

• shops

• restaurants and cafes

• takeaways

• hotels, caravan sites and campsites

• offices

• warehouses

• places of worship

• hairdressers and beauty therapists

• tattooing and body piercing

• tyre and exhaust premises

We have a team of officers who carry out inspections of businesses, investigate complaints and investigate accidents and near misses.

What can officers do?

The law gives a wide range of power to our officers, including:

• entering premises to carry out their duties

• carrying out investigations and examinations

• taking measurements, photographs and samples

• taking possession of articles and equipment 

• requiring people to provide information

• taking statements from people

• inspecting and copying documents

• issuing Improvement Notices

• issuing Prohibition Notices

What action can we take?

If there is a breach of health and safety law, then the officer can take several courses of action, which most likely are:

• issue an informal warning – this will provide information and advice about  improvements that can be introduced

• serve an improvement Notice – this is a formal enforcement notice which will detail what is wrong with any procedures and/ or practices, what to do to fix them and will specify the  date by which the improvements must be introduced

• serve a prohibition notice – this is a formal enforcement notice to deal with a risk of serious personal injury. It requires a work activity or a process to stop immediately and will stay in force until all issues are resolved and the notice is lifted by us

• prosecution – this is likely to follow non-compliance of an improvement notice or a prohibition notice or after an investigation of a serious accident in the workplace.