Posted By Pat Hannaway Hi, the "3 year licence" issued by many training companies isn't worth the paper its written on. As with many things in H&S its just a making scam perpetuated by some training companies with dubious work practices. There is a book produced by HSE (Norther Ireland) calledRider Operated lift trucks:Operator training: Approved Code of Practice and Guidance (ISBN0-337-09469-1. Paragraph 47 states "There is no specific requirement to provide refresher trainingafter set intervals, but even trained and experienced lift-truck operators need to be re-assessed fromtime to time to ensure that they continue to operate lift trucks safely.THis assessmentwhich should form monepart of a firm's normal monitoring proceduresand beformally timetabled to ensure that it is done at reasonable intervals, will indicate whether further training is needed. In addition to routine safety monitoring re-assessment might be appropriate where operators have not used a truck for some time, are occasional users appear to have developed unsafe working practices, have had an accident or near miss, or there is a change in hteir working practices or environment. Employers may find it useful to record re-assesment in their safety monitoring records. Employers can of course decide that automatic retraining after a set period is the best way of ensuring that employees are adequately trained, but where this approach is adopted, it will still be necessary to monitor performance in case retraining is required before the set period ends. The guiding principle is that employers need to maintain the competence of operators to use lift trucks safely through a laid down, formal process of monitoring and assesment." Hope this is of some use. Pat

Posted By Barry Cooper As previous colleagues have said, there is no defined period, but I would suggest every three years, or following an accident, or after long periods of non use. If you have a serious accident the HSE will ask what training has the driver had, and if you have provided refresher training then this will provide mitigation. Drivers learn bad habits and the refresher training identifies these and hopefully corrects them.