KD Construction Safety Services Ltd
Building Skills, Building Futures.
Thorough Examination
What is a Thorough Examination?
A Thorough Examination is the name given to the mandatory inspection required by law to ensure that the mechanical parts of a lift truck are in safe working order. It is roughly equivalent to the MOT for cars.
Work equipment must receive a Thorough Examination at least once a year. However, examinations could be required more often depending on your type of truck.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states:
"Thorough examination of industrial lift trucks is required under health and safety law: LOLER 1998, which covers lifting equipment, and PUWER 1998, which deals with all other safety-related items, such as brakes, steering and tyres. Your regular inspections as part of a preventive maintenance scheme or scheduled service are not a thorough examination."
It is crucial to ensure that your Thorough Examinations comprehensively cover both the lifting and the driving mechanisms of the truck, because not all of them do. Some examinations only cover LOLER, which could put equipment, operators and businesses at risk.
Thorough Examination: Whose job?
Under Health and Safety legislation, the employer of the lift truck operator has a duty of care to ensure the equipment is safe:
“It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, as far as is reasonably practical, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”
- Health & Safety at Work Act, 1974 -
If you own the truck and employ the operator:
If you are the outright owner of the truck, you must arrange a regular Thorough Examination schedule appropriate to the truck and its use.
If you are leasing or renting the truck on a long-term basis (12 months or more):
Here the responsibilities are the same as if it was owned outright, and the duty remains with the employer of the truck operator to arrange Thorough Examinations.
Short-term hire (one day to one year):
The rental company is responsible for arranging Thorough Examination as its owner.
Check the Report
In either situation, the employer of the truck’s operator must be certain that the truck carries a valid Thorough Examination – usually by insisting on having a copy of the Report of Thorough Examination included with the rental documentation.
In addition, the truck must have a valid Report of Thorough Examination whenever it leaves an owner’s undertaking – in effect, when it changes hands, or is transferred between companies, whether on a temporary or permanent basis.
Do you have more questions about Thorough Examinations? email: amanda@kdconstruction.co.uk