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Health and Safety

What Is PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations)? Health and Safety Definition and How Teams Use It

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Quick Answer

PUWER is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, the UK law covering the equipment people use at work, from hand tools and machinery to plant and vehicles. It requires that work equipment is suitable for its task, safe to use, properly maintained, fitted with the right guards and controls, and used only by people who have been trained. Inspecting equipment on a schedule and recording each check is how organisations show the duty is being met.

What is PUWER?

PUWER stands for the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, a set of UK health and safety rules that apply to almost any equipment used at work, including machines, hand and power tools, ladders, and vehicles. The duties fall on employers, the self-employed, and anyone who has control of work equipment.

The regulations require that work equipment is suitable for the job and the environment, kept in a safe condition through maintenance, fitted with suitable guards, protection devices, markings, and controls, and used only by people who have received adequate information, instruction, and training. Some higher-risk equipment must also be inspected at suitable intervals by a competent person. PUWER sits alongside LOLER, which adds extra duties for equipment that lifts loads.

What PUWER compliance involves

In practice, PUWER compliance starts with knowing what work equipment is in use and making sure each item is right for its task and safe to operate. Equipment is maintained on a schedule, guards and safety devices are kept in working order, and operators are trained on safe use before they are allowed to work with it.

Where deterioration could create a risk, equipment is inspected at suitable intervals by a competent person, and any defect is recorded and put right before use continues if it is serious. The record of maintenance, inspections, and repairs is the evidence that the equipment has been kept safe, so keeping a complete and current history for each item matters as much as the checks themselves.

How Inspectly360 supports PUWER compliance

Inspectly360 keeps work equipment on an asset register with its maintenance and inspection schedule, and prompts the team before a check falls due. Pre-use checks and periodic inspections run as mobile checklists with photo evidence and timestamps, so the condition of each machine is captured at the point of use rather than remembered later.

When an inspection finds a fault, a corrective action is raised with an owner and a due date and tracked to a verified fix, and managers see overdue inspections and open defects across every site on one dashboard. See the planned preventive maintenance software to schedule these checks and keep a defensible PUWER record.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does PUWER stand for?

PUWER stands for the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, a set of UK health and safety regulations. They apply to almost any equipment used at work, including machinery, hand and power tools, lifting accessories, ladders, and work vehicles, and the duties fall on employers, the self-employed, and anyone who controls how work equipment is used. In broad terms, PUWER requires that equipment is suitable for its purpose, safe to use and properly maintained, fitted with appropriate guards and controls, and operated only by people who have been trained. People often use the word PUWER to mean the whole discipline of selecting safe equipment, maintaining it, inspecting it where needed, and keeping the records that prove it has been done.

What does PUWER require employers to do?

Under PUWER, employers must make sure work equipment is suitable for the task and the place it is used, kept in a safe condition through maintenance, and fitted with the guards, protective devices, warnings, and controls needed to use it safely. They must ensure that only trained people operate it and that anyone supervising or managing its use has adequate knowledge. Where equipment presents a significant risk that could result from installation, deterioration, or exceptional circumstances, it must be inspected at suitable intervals by a competent person and the results recorded. The underlying expectation is that employers actively manage the equipment through its life and can show, through maintenance and inspection records, that it has been kept safe.

What is the difference between PUWER and LOLER?

PUWER covers all work equipment and its general safe provision, use, maintenance, and inspection, while LOLER adds specific extra duties for equipment that lifts or lowers loads, including people. A machine such as a crane or a passenger lift must satisfy PUWER as a piece of work equipment and also satisfy LOLER because it carries out a lifting operation, which is where duties like safe working loads, planning of lifting operations, and thorough examination by a competent person come from. Most organisations manage the two together, keeping one asset register and one schedule that records PUWER inspections and LOLER thorough examinations for the same equipment so that neither is missed and the full history sits in one place.

How often does work equipment need inspection under PUWER?

PUWER does not fix a single interval for all equipment. Instead, it requires inspection at suitable intervals where the safety of the equipment depends on the conditions of installation or is likely to deteriorate and create a risk. The right frequency is decided by a competent person based on how the equipment is used, the manufacturer's guidance, the working environment, and the consequences of a failure. Higher-risk or heavily used equipment is inspected more often, and equipment is also checked after installation or reassembly at a new location and after any event that might have affected its safety. Whatever interval is chosen, the inspection and its findings must be recorded so that the equipment's safe condition can be demonstrated.

How does Inspectly360 help with PUWER compliance?

Inspectly360 helps organisations meet PUWER by holding work equipment on an asset register with its maintenance and inspection schedule and prompting the team before each check falls due. Pre-use checks and periodic inspections run as mobile checklists with photo evidence and timestamps, so the condition of each machine or tool is captured at the point of use. When a check finds a fault, the app raises a corrective action with an owner and a deadline and tracks it to a verified fix, and training and inspection records can be stored against each asset. Managers see overdue inspections and open defects across every site on one dashboard, so a current, evidenced record of safe equipment is available rather than a folder of loose maintenance sheets.

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