CareHomeDeskCareHomeDeskCAR 2012 Regulation 4(4) requires that anyone carrying out building, maintenance, repair or refurbishment work in a care home where ACMs are present must be given relevant information about those materials before they start work. This duty applies to every works instruction.
Regulation 4(4) of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 requires that anyone carrying out maintenance, repair, refurbishment or other building work in premises where ACMs are present, or presumed present, must be given relevant information about the location and condition of those materials before starting work. This duty applies to every instruction given to a contractor, from a routine reactive repair to a planned refurbishment project, and it sits with the duty holder, not the contractor.
The most reliable way to meet this duty is to make asbestos information a mandatory step in issuing any works instruction -- whether to an in-house maintenance operative or an external contractor -- so that relevant extracts from the asbestos register are provided as standard before access is given to any area, rather than relying on staff to remember to mention it. A simple checklist step confirming asbestos information has been provided and acknowledged closes off the most common failure point.
The scenario that recurs most often in enforcement cases is a contractor sent to carry out an apparently routine task -- fixing a leak, running a cable, replacing a light fitting -- who accesses a ceiling void, riser cupboard or service duct without being shown the asbestos register first, on the assumption the job did not require it. Because these areas frequently contain ACMs such as pipe lagging or asbestos insulation board, this is exactly the kind of task where notification is most critical and most often skipped.
A common but legally insufficient justification given after an incident is that the contractor was familiar with the building and did not need formal notification. HSE does not accept this as a defence, because the duty is to provide relevant information for the specific work being carried out, not to rely on general knowledge that may be outdated, incomplete, or held by an individual worker who is not the one attending on a given day.
For full protection, notification should be recorded, not just delivered verbally -- a simple log noting the works instruction, the contractor, the date, and confirmation that relevant asbestos register information was provided and received creates a defensible audit trail. This record becomes critical evidence in the event of any incident, demonstrating the duty holder met its Regulation 4(4) obligation regardless of what happened on site afterwards.
CareHomeDesk gives you compliance checklists, maintenance logs, and contractor management tools built around exactly this kind of knowledge.