COVID-19 Pandemic Occupational Health and Safety Audit Tool

Auditing is an essential element of the HSE’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management system. The purpose of this COVID-19 management system audit tool is to assist HSE site/service management to determine its level of compliance with the Work Safely Protocol in accordance with the criteria (and limitations) of the tool.

The tool has been devised following the publication of the Government's 'Return to Work Safely Protocol COVID-19 Specific National Protocol for Employers and Workers' and the updated 'Work Safely Protocol' (November 2020). This tool should be applied at site/ service level. 

This audit is designed for use for self-assessment purposes and should be undertaken by a member of senior management for the site/service e.g. a COVID-19 Response Manager or the manager who is responsible for coordinating the COVID-19 response. The integrity of the audit findings and Quality Improvement Plan will be dependent on the quality of the self assessment submission. As this is a self-audit tool the person responsible for completing the audit must gather and retain any necessary evidence to substantiate their input for their own records.

All relevant employees involved in this audit should be advised of the purpose of this audit tool as outlined and also of the need to co-operate with the audit process. This audit  will outline the performance of the site/ service in relation to each criteria. When the audit tool detects an area of non-compliance, a quality improvement plan is generated relating to that area of non-compliance. This is immediately visible to the manager carrying out the audit.

Following completion of the audit, all quality improvement plans  are included in the report which can be printed directly. The results of this audit should be fed-back to the site/service management and the COVID-19 Response Manager (CRM) or the manager who is responsible for coordinating the COVID-19 response who should consider the audit findings and take appropriate and timely action to address any deficits (non compliances) identified by each of the quality improvement plans.

Please Note: Where a QIP refers to "a different template" it is expected that NHSF templates would be used in all sites and services. We would not encourage the use of alternative forms/templates, however any such alternative must comply with the relevant HSE/NHSF template (i.e. include all the elements/minimum data set).