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Oversight & Inspection

Health and Safety Checks

Fire alarms, extinguishers, emergency lighting and gas safety run on their own intervals — monthly, six-monthly, annual — and each one is a legal obligation in its own right. This is where they are tracked.

Last updated 2 min read training, culinary key…

Written by Founder, Culinary Key

Twenty years in UK kitchens, from independent bakeries to BRC-audited production — the person responsible when the EHO walks in.

Health and Safety Checks

Health & Safety covers the recurring safety obligations of the building, each on its own schedule.

It Belongs to the Premises

These checks are held against the Location, not an Area.

That is the correct level, and it is worth understanding why. A fire alarm is not the kitchen's alarm and the front-of-house alarm. Emergency lighting does not belong to one half of a building. The obligation attaches to the premises, so the record does too — and it means the check is done once, not duplicated by two teams who each assume the other did it.

What Is Tracked

Typical checks include:

Each has its own interval, because the intervals genuinely differ — a weekly alarm test and an annual gas safety inspection do not belong on the same cycle.

Setting Them Up

Add the checks that apply to your premises and set the interval for each. Not every check applies everywhere: an all-electric kitchen has no gas safety check to do.

If you run several Locations, you can apply a set of checks to more than one at once rather than building each premises separately. Most sites need broadly the same list.

Overdue Checks Are Loud

An overdue health and safety check is deliberately hard to ignore. It shows on the Location itself, so an overdue fire alarm test is visible from the overview rather than only inside the section.

That prominence is intentional. These are the checks that go quiet for months without anything going visibly wrong — right up until the moment they matter enormously.

Recording a Check

Record the date, who carried it out, and the result. Where a contractor certificate exists — gas safety, fire equipment servicing, PAT — keep it filed alongside; the log says the check happened, the certificate proves it.

Why It Sits Beside Food Safety

An EHO inspects food safety. Fire safety, gas safety and electrical safety are usually enforced by other bodies entirely.

Keeping them in one place is a practical decision, not a legal one. The person running the building is the same person either way, and obligations tracked in four separate places are obligations that get missed. The whole point of a recurring-check register is that it asks the question before anybody else does.

Next in this series

Monthly ReviewDaily records tell you about today. The monthly review is where you step back and look at the month — which is the only altitude from which a slow drift is visiThe Audit ToolThe Audit Tool is where every record you have kept becomes something you can actually read — completion rates, gaps, and a PDF you can hand to somebody.Food Safety Audits And Record KeepingIn food safety, an audit is not a single event. It is the result of what you record day to day. In Culinary Key, the Audit area brings all of that evidence