How long training certificates last

How long each certificate lasts

The third column is the one to read. "Law" means a regulation sets the rule. "Approved Code of Practice" means the rule is in an HSE code with a special legal status, explained under asbestos below. "HSE guidance" means HSE says what you should do. "Provider practice" means the date comes from the people who sold the course.

"No legal expiry" does not mean train once and forget it. The general duty, in regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, is that training must be "repeated periodically where appropriate". The law leaves the period to you. It does not leave out the refresher.

First aid certificates

HSE's guidance is direct: "Certificates for the purposes of first aid at work last for three years." That applies to first aid at work (the course of at least three days) and to emergency first aid at work (the one-day course). Before the certificate expires the first-aider needs a requalification course to get another three years.

HSE goes on: once a certificate has expired, the first-aider "is no longer considered to be competent to act as a workplace first aider". So an expired first aid certificate is not a paperwork problem. If that person was your only first-aider, you no longer have one.

The three years is HSE's guidance. The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 say only that a first-aider must have had training and hold qualifications that are appropriate in the circumstances.

HSE also strongly recommends a yearly refresher to keep skills up, and says in its own questions and answers that this is not a mandatory requirement. An appointed person, who looks after the kit and calls the emergency services, needs no first-aid training, so there is nothing to expire.

Fire marshal and fire warden training

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which applies in England and Wales, does not give fire marshal training a life in years. It says two things.

• Every employee must be given fire safety training when first employed and when their risks change, and it must be "repeated periodically where appropriate" (article 21).
• You must nominate enough competent people to carry out your evacuation procedures. A person is competent when they have "sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities" to do it properly (article 15).

Training providers commonly print three years on a fire marshal certificate, and some recommend a yearly refresher. That is their recommendation. You decide the period from your fire risk assessment, and you refresh sooner if the layout changes, a marshal's area changes or a drill shows that people did not know what to do. GOV.UK's guidance is that you should carry out at least one fire drill a year and record the results.

Scotland has its own fire safety law, the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006, which sets the training duty in the same terms.

Manual handling training

There is no legal expiry. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 require you to avoid hazardous manual handling where you reasonably can, assess what is left and reduce the risk. They do not mention a certificate or a refresher period, and HSE's guidance on manual handling training describes what the training should cover without giving one either.

Providers commonly put three years on the certificate. Treat that as a sensible default and shorten it where the lifting is heavy, frequent or awkward. Refresh straight away when the loads, the equipment or the way of working change, and when someone reports back pain. HSE's own caution is worth repeating: training "won't ensure safe manual handling on its own". The task has to be designed safely first.

Asbestos awareness training

Regulation 10 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 says information, instruction and training must be "given at regular intervals". It does not say what the interval is.

Many people believe asbestos awareness must be retaken every year. HSE says otherwise: "There is no legal requirement to repeat an entire formal awareness refresher training course every 12 months." Some form of refresher should be given as necessary to keep the knowledge alive. HSE says that could be e-learning, or an update or safety talk given in house by a supervisor who has done the course and is competent to give it.

The yearly rule applies to a different group. For people who carry out non-licensed or licensed work with asbestos, HSE's Approved Code of Practice, Managing and working with asbestos (L143), says refresher training should be given every year, or more often if the work methods, the control equipment or the type of work change, or gaps in competence are found.

An Approved Code of Practice is not law, but it has a special legal status. It gives practical advice on how to comply with the law, and you may comply in another way. If you are prosecuted for a breach of health and safety law and it is proved that you did not follow the relevant part of the code, you will need to show that you complied with the law in some other way, or a court will find you at fault.

Working at height and forklift training

Working at height. Regulation 5 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires anyone who works at height, or who organises, plans or supervises it, to be competent, or to be supervised by a competent person while being trained. No period is given. HSE says you do not need to be formally qualified to use a ladder at work. You need to be competent. Card schemes for mobile towers and powered access platforms set their own expiry dates, which are printed on the card.

Forklift trucks. HSE says: "There is no specific time period after which you need to provide refresher training or formal assessment." It adds that an employer may decide that automatic refresher training or a retest after a set period, "for example 3-5 years", is the best way to keep operators competent, and that you still need to watch how people drive in between. HSE also says there is no such thing as a lift-truck licence and no legal requirement for a certificate, though it encourages certificates as evidence of training.

For lift trucks, HSE lists the reasons to refresh or retest early. The operator has not used a truck for some time, is an occasional user, has developed unsafe habits, has had an accident or near miss, or has had a change of working practices or environment.

Setting a refresher period when the law gives none

For most courses the decision is yours. These are the things to weigh.

• How bad the harm could be. A fall or a crush justifies a shorter period than a strained wrist.
• How often the skill is used. HSE's point about drivers applies widely: people lose skills if they do not use them regularly.
• How fast the work changes. New kit, new premises and new methods each call for training when they happen, whatever the date.
• What the provider recommends. It is a reasonable default if you have no reason to differ.
• What your customers require. A client's rule may be stricter than the law. It is still a rule you have to meet to keep the work.

Then write the period down against each course, apply it to everybody, and treat the date it produces as real. A period nobody recorded cannot be shown to anyone. Our guide to mandatory training sets out which training the law requires in the first place, and a training matrix is the usual way to see every date at once. There is a free training matrix template in Excel if you want to start there.

Recording expiry dates in SafetyPro360

In SafetyPro360 each training course has a length in months, or is marked as never expiring. When you add a training record you enter who did the course and the date it was completed, and the expiry date is worked out from the course's length. Certificate number, provider and notes can be kept on the record. The training matrix shows each record as in date, running out within 30 days or expired. The period for each course is the one you set. The product does not send reminders, so the list is there when you log in.

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