Health and safety checklist for pubs and restaurants

What is a health and safety checklist?

A health and safety checklist summarises everything you need to have covered to stay compliant with health and safety legislation. Performing regular inspections using compliance checklists (daily, weekly or monthly) prevents accidents at work and helps maintain a safer work environment for both staff and customers. This also helps protect your business during EHO inspections which is why health and safety checklists are a compliance management tool used by thousands of hospitality venues across the UK.

There are 5 key areas that make up and effective health and safety checklist. These key areas must be covered and clearly documented to remain compliant within your pub or restaurant. This can be a relatively big task to tackle

Looking for an easier solution?

Learn how we can make compliance management easier with online health and safety checklists and tools.

1. Risk assessments

What is a Risk Assessment?

The definition of a risk assessment is; an industry standard process that involves identifying hazards, who might be at risk, and how hazards are managed to mitigate risk. It's a way to assess risks and ensure measures are in place to decrease the likelihood of harm.

You can learn more about ‘what is a risk assessment?’ by reading our blog on the topic which goes into more detail around the risk assessment process

What risk assessments do I need?

Your risk assessments should cover as many potential hazards as possible to ensure a safe working environment. Some areas to consider are;

• Kitchen safety
• Use of equipment
• Slips trips and falls
• Fire safety

Incident reporting

Hopefully, not something that you will need to regularly deal with, incident reporting is an important part of both the compliance, and the risk assessment process.

Reviewing accurately documented incidents can be especially useful in identifying risks you may not have considered, improving your risk assessment management process. Adequate incident reports can also help with formalities such as insurance claims for mishaps like property damage, or personal injury.

2. Staff Policies

Every business has a set of policies staff need to be aware of but this goes further than simple dress codes or staff codes of conduct. There are set rules and procedures that must be followed to maintain a good standard of compliance. Some of these policies include;

Employing young people

With a lack of experience comes more risk so it's integral young people are not expected to;

• Complete anything beyond their physical or psychological capacity
• Work more than 40 hours a week (8 hours a day)
• Operate under high risk conditions

As an employer you must consider:

• Their duties and responsibilities
• How they will handle work equipment
• The maturity of the individual
• The extent of training they will be given

Serving alcohol:

As a venue that serves alcohol you must:

• Have premises license that is clearly displayed
• Not serve alcohol to anyone under the age of 18
• Have a designated premises supervisor

3. Kitchen safety

Most accidents happen within the kitchen due to how many risks staff are exposed to. It's important that you have risk assessments in place to minimise the chances of something going wrong.

You must consider;

• Using knives and sharp objects
• Contact with hot surfaces and substances
• Potential for slips and trips
• Equipment used
• Lifting and manual handling

4. Food safety

Food safety is one of the most important areas of health and safety if you run a restaurant or food serving pub. If someone gets sick it can leave you liable and tarnish the reputation of your venue.

Personal Hygiene

With the rise of covid this has become increasingly important, all staff should wash their hands regularly, especially if handling food or after emptying bins.
If anyone in the Kitchen is feeling unwell you must send them home to avoid passing it onto customers.

Food storage

• Fridge temperature should be between 0 to 8 degrees. Completing temperature checks a couple of times a day can help keep it in the sweet spot
• The ideal freezer temperature is -18

Pest control

You must be vigilant when it comes to pest control. Look out for signs of pests like mice which can carry diseases and contaminate food.

You can avoid pests by:

• Making sure your kitchen is clean and tidy
• Store ingredients in sealed containers
• Food storage locations should be a secure place with no holes or gaps in the walls

If you do find signs of pests, there are various things you can do. Setting up mouse traps can be a starting point, zbut if you keep noticing signs of pests it might be smart to contact a pest control expert.

Food handling

• Avoid cross contamination by using correctly coloured cutting boards
• All ingredients must be correctly labelled and dated to avoid using expired ingredients
• All kitchen staff must be aware of the 14 recognised allergens

5. Equipment maintenance checks

The equipment that you use must be in good working order, from the knives being sharp to clean deep fat fryers. By performing maintenance checks you can ensure everything is running smoothly and your kitchen staff have all the tools they need to perform their duties effectively and safely. You can maintain your equipment for longer with regular cleaning and the timely replacement of broken parts.

Compliance software: A solution to health and safety

We understand how much goes into compliance management. That's why we have created a tool that helps you manage compliance more effectively. Focusing on measurable metrics that provides full visibility of your business no matter how many venues. Learn more about our solution to compliance management or try our compliance software for free today!