Health and Safety Audits: What They Are, Why They Matter and How They Help Your Business

When someone mentions the word "audit," it rarely triggers positive emotions. Most people picture stacks of paperwork, inspectors finding fault with everything and operations grinding to a halt while someone ticks boxes on a clipboard. If you've ever braced yourself for an audit, you're not alone.

But here's the thing about health and safety audits: they're quite possibly one of the most valuable tools available for protecting your workforce and your business. Done properly, an audit doesn't solely expose weakness, it highlights opportunities to improve before something goes wrong. A well-executed audit can give you genuine peace of mind that your systems are working as they should.

So what exactly is a health and safety audit and why should you consider having one?

What Is a Health and Safety Audit?

A health and safety audit is a systematic examination of your organisation's health and safety management arrangements. Think of it as a comprehensive check-up for your safety systems, similar to how you'd get your boiler serviced annually or your car MOT'd.

During an audit, a qualified assessor reviews your policies, procedures, risk assessments, etc. to determine whether they're adequate, whether they're being followed and most importantly, whether they're actually working to protect people from harm. This goes well past simply checking you've got the right documents filed away somewhere, it looks at how health and safety actually functions in your workplace day-to-day.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) considers auditing a critical part of the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach to managing health and safety. In their guidance on monitoring and reporting, they make clear that effective audits allow organisations to check their management structures and risk controls are working as intended.

A typical health and safety audit examines several key areas. Your policies and procedures get reviewed to see if they're suitable for your actual operations. Risk assessments are scrutinised to check they cover the hazards and include appropriate controls. Training records come under review to make certain people have the knowledge they need to work safely. The audit looks at how you report and investigate incidents, how you communicate safety information and whether you've got proper systems for maintaining equipment and managing contractors.

What sets an audit apart from a simple inspection is the depth and structure. While an inspection might focus on observable hazards at a particular point in time, an audit digs into your systems and processes to understand whether your entire approach to managing health and safety is sound.

Why Health and Safety Audits Matter

UK law doesn't explicitly require you to carry out health and safety audits in the same way it mandates risk assessments. However, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 does require employers to manage health and safety effectively and regular audits are widely recognised as best practice for demonstrating you're meeting this duty.

The benefits of regular audits extend well past legal compliance. First and foremost, audits often identify risks before they result in accidents. It's far better to discover through an audit that your permit-to-work system has gaps than to find out when someone gets seriously injured. That kind of proactive identification can prevent tragedy and it can also save your business substantial costs in the long run.

Many larger organisations and public sector contracts now expect their supply chain partners to carry out audits or hold certifications like ISO 45001, the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems. Regular audits form the foundation of achieving and maintaining such certification, opening doors to opportunities that might otherwise remain closed.

There's also the human element that gets overlooked in purely compliance-focused discussions. When your workforce sees that management is serious about health and safety, serious enough to bring in external experts to check your systems, it builds trust and morale. People want to feel safe at work and demonstrating genuine commitment to their wellbeing has tangible benefits for retention and productivity.

What Different Types of Audits Cover

Not all audits are created equal and understanding the different types available helps you choose the right approach for your needs.

A general compliance audit examines your organisation against UK health and safety legislation. The auditor checks whether you're meeting your legal duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act and associated regulations like the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) and others relevant to your sector. This type of audit typically follows a structured framework and provides a percentage score or rating to benchmark your performance.

Specialist audits focus on particular (high-risk) areas or compliance requirements. You might commission a fire safety audit, a manual handling audit or a CDM audit depending on your sector and the specific risks you face. These deep-dive assessments provide detailed examination of specific hazards or regulatory requirements. These kind of audits can also be in line with specific certifications you want to achieve.

Internal Audits vs External Audits

The question of whether to conduct audits internally or engage external auditors is one many organisations grapple with and there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

Internal audits have several advantages. They're typically less expensive, they can be scheduled flexibly to minimise disruption and they draw on knowledge from people who understand your business intimately. For internal audits to be effective, however, you need someone with appropriate competence. The HSE defines a competent person as someone with sufficient training, experience, knowledge and other qualities to properly assist you. In practical terms, this usually means someone who holds recognised qualifications such as a NEBOSH Certificate or Diploma.

The challenge with internal audits is maintaining objectivity. When you've been part of developing systems or when you work alongside the people you're auditing, it can be difficult to step back and critically evaluate what's really happening. There's also the risk of professional blindness, where you stop noticing issues because they've become normalised within your organisation.

External audits bring fresh eyes and an independent perspective. A external auditor can objectively assess whether arrangements are adequate. They also bring breadth of experience from working with multiple organisations, allowing them to benchmark your performance against industry standards and share insights about what works well elsewhere.

External audits carry particular weight with stakeholders. When you tell a client or certification body that an external specialist has audited your systems, it often carries more credibility than a self-assessment.

At DuoDynamic, we conduct external audits following recognised frameworks and standards. Our approach involves reviewing your documentation, conducting site inspections, interviewing managers and workers and producing a detailed report with prioritised recommendations.

How Often Should You Conduct Audits?

There's no single answer to how frequently you should audit your health and safety arrangements, but there are several factors worth considering.

As a baseline, most organisations benefit from a full compliance audit at least annually. This provides regular reassurance that your systems remain effective and compliant as your business evolves. It also demonstrates to stakeholders and potential clients that you're serious about maintaining standards.

Higher-risk sectors may warrant more frequent auditing. If you're operating in construction, manufacturing or logistics where the consequences of failure can be severe, bi-annual audits might be more appropriate. The same applies if you've recently experienced serious incidents or received enforcement action from regulators.

Significant changes to your business should trigger an audit even if you're not due for a regular one. Expanding into new premises, taking on substantially different work, merging with another organisation or implementing major operational changes all represent moments when your existing systems might no longer be adequate.

If you're working towards ISO 45001 certification, you'll need to establish a planned programme of internal audits as part of your management system. Once certified, you'll have surveillance audits from your certification body annually, with a full recertification audit every three years.

Some organisations take a rolling approach, auditing different parts of their operation throughout the year rather than attempting to cover everything annually. This spreads the workload and allows more thorough examination of each area.

What to Expect During the Audit Process

Understanding what happens during a health and safety audit can alleviate some of the anxiety around the process. While specific approaches vary depending on the auditor and the scope, most audits follow a similar pattern.

The process typically begins with planning and scoping. The auditor needs to understand your organisation, what you do, the hazards you face and what you want to achieve from the audit. This initial discussion allows both parties to agree on the audit scope and schedule.

Pre-audit documentation review comes next. You'll be asked to provide copies of key documents such as your health and safety policy, risk assessments, training records, incident reports and procedures. The auditor reviews these before the site visit to understand your current arrangements and identify areas requiring particular attention during the on-site phase.

The site visit itself usually involves several elements. The auditor will tour your premises to observe workplace conditions, equipment, signage, housekeeping standards and the general safety culture. They'll interview managers and workers at various levels to understand how policies translate into practice and gather different perspectives on how safety is managed. Physical inspections of specific areas or activities might take place, such as checking storage of hazardous substances, examining equipment maintenance records or reviewing emergency arrangements.

Throughout this process, a professional auditor should be collaborative rather than confrontational. The goal is to understand your operation and identify opportunities for improvement, not to catch people out or allocate blame.

Following the site visit, the auditor prepares a detailed report. Good audit reports clearly outline findings, categorise them by severity (often using categories like critical, major and minor) and provide specific recommendations for improvement.

Taking Action After Your Audit

An audit report sitting on a shelf gathering dust provides zero value. The true benefit of an audit lies in the actions taken afterwards.

When you receive your audit report, the first task is prioritising the findings. Critical findings typically represent immediate risks to people or serious breaches of legal requirements that could result in enforcement action. These demand urgent attention.

For each finding, assign clear ownership. Someone needs to be responsible for implementing each recommendation, even if they'll need support from others. Without clear accountability, improvements tend to languish indefinitely.

Develop realistic timescales based on the resources and expertise required. Some improvements can be implemented immediately, such as adding warning signs or removing an obvious trip hazard. Others may require procurement processes, training programmes or consultation with workers, all of which take time.

Consider the resources needed, both financial and human. Some improvements have cost implications, whether for new equipment, external consultancy or staff time. Building these into budget planning makes it more likely they'll actually happen.

Track progress systematically rather than trying to remember what's been done. A simple spreadsheet tracking each recommendation, who's responsible, the target date and current status keeps everyone focused on completion.

Communicate progress to your workforce. When people see that audit recommendations are being implemented, it reinforces that management takes health and safety seriously and that their input matters.

Review the effectiveness of changes after implementation. Installing a new piece of equipment or introducing a new procedure doesn't guarantee the desired improvement. Follow-up checks confirm that the implemented solution actually addresses the identified issue.

How we at DuoDynamic Can Help With Your Health and Safety Audits

At DuoDynamic Safety Solutions, we understand that every organisation's needs are different. Our audit services are flexible enough to meet you wherever you are in your health and safety journey. Whether you need a one-off audit or ongoing support developing your health and safety management systems, we can help.