CareHomeDeskCareHomeDeskThe Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012) Regulation 4 imposes a duty to manage asbestos on any person who has maintenance or repair responsibilities for non-domestic premises built before 2000. The duty requires a management survey from a UKAS-accredited surveyor, a written ACM register, and a documented management plan.
Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 places a specific duty to manage asbestos on any person with an obligation for the maintenance or repair of non-domestic premises, which in a care home context is typically the registered provider or a nominated responsible person. This duty applies to any building constructed or significantly refurbished before the year 2000, when the use of asbestos-containing materials was still permitted, and it exists regardless of whether asbestos has actually been confirmed present.
Meeting the duty to manage requires three linked elements: a management survey carried out by a surveyor operating under UKAS accreditation to identify or presume the presence of ACMs, a written register recording the location, extent, type and condition of each identified or presumed material, and a documented management plan describing how the risk from those materials will be controlled on an ongoing basis, including reinspection frequency and contractor notification procedures.
The management survey should be carried out by a surveying organisation accredited under the UKAS scheme for asbestos surveying, following the methodology set out in HSE guidance. Using an unaccredited or informally competent individual to carry out the survey undermines its legal and practical reliability, and any survey commissioned should be checked against this accreditation before work begins.
The absence of an asbestos management survey for a pre-2000 care home building is treated as a prima facie breach of the CAR 2012 duty to manage, and HSE enforcement activity indicates this remains one of the most commonly identified compliance failures in the care sector, often because a survey carried out at acquisition or an earlier point in the building's history was never followed up with an ongoing management regime.
Where a contractor disturbs an asbestos-containing material that was not identified because no survey was in place, or because an existing survey was incomplete, the duty holder faces potential criminal prosecution under CAR 2012 in addition to the immediate health risk to everyone in the building at the time. Given the severity of these consequences, commissioning and maintaining a current management survey should be treated as a non-negotiable baseline requirement for any pre-2000 care home, not a discretionary item to be addressed when budget allows.
CareHomeDesk gives you compliance checklists, maintenance logs, and contractor management tools built around exactly this kind of knowledge.