Hi, I am developing a list for health and safety record retention. For example i have just found out that health surveillance records must be kept for forty years, public liability 40 years etc, etc, etc.. Does any one know or have access to a definitive list of how long (legally) certain health and safety records need to be kept for. Or is it a case of trawling thorugh thre endless reams of acts and regulations. Regards Ian

Ashley First of all the answer is yes you will need to trawl through the regulations - but only the ones that apply, however each set of regs will generally have a section entitled - records where you can pick up any timebound duty with respect to keeping records. Dont forget that it is good risk management practice that every last piece of information every risk assessment. method statement training pack etc etc should be archived for a time. That time is for yourself as risk manager to decide. This is for claims management issues, this is generally as a rule of thumb five years to cover the 3 years protocol plus buffer. You will also find that 5 years covers the majority of the timebound duties imposed by most Regulations other than ones associated with Occupational Health issues, IRR, asbestos (i think) etc. There is several ways of archiving from boxing up and taking to storage copying onto pdf and storing electronically

Whilst storing records electronically is going to save space don't forget that one day you need to retrieve them....who thought to put their H&S records on to 3.5" floppy disk or zip disk (?) 10 years ago? What form of storage media is going to die out next