CareHomeDeskCareHomeDeskAwaab's Law (Housing Act 2023 amendments) introduces mandatory remediation timescales for damp and mould in regulated housing. The Health and Safety Executive has signalled equivalent expectations for care premises.
Awaab's Law, brought in through amendments to the Housing Act 2023 in response to the death of a child from prolonged exposure to mould in social housing, sets mandatory timescales within which social landlords must investigate and remediate reported damp and mould hazards. While the legislation is targeted at registered social housing providers, the standard it sets -- rapid investigation, defined remediation timescales, and clear record-keeping -- is now the benchmark that regulators and enforcement bodies are expected to apply more broadly across regulated accommodation, including care settings.
Although care homes are not directly bound by Awaab's Law in the way social housing landlords are, the Health and Safety Executive and CQC have both signalled that they expect equivalent standards of responsiveness where damp and mould affect vulnerable residents. CQC's safe environment expectations already require providers to identify and mitigate risks to health, and a slow or undocumented response to a reported mould problem is increasingly likely to be treated as a failure against that standard, regardless of whether Awaab's Law itself applies.
Good practice is to adopt an internal policy that mirrors the spirit of Awaab's Law: an initial investigation of any damp or mould report within a short, defined period, a written assessment of severity and health risk, and a remediation timescale that reflects that severity -- with the most serious cases, such as mould in a room occupied by a resident with respiratory illness, treated as urgent. Having this policy in writing, and being able to show you followed it, is far stronger evidence of good governance than resolving problems reactively without a documented process.
Wiping down visible mould without identifying the underlying cause -- rising damp, penetrating damp, condensation from poor ventilation, or a failed building element such as cavity wall insulation or roof covering -- means the problem will return, often worse. A proper investigation should identify the moisture source before any redecoration work is carried out, and the finding should be recorded even where the fix is straightforward, so there is a clear paper trail from report to root cause to remediation.
Every damp or mould report, whether from a resident, family member or staff member, should be logged with the date received, the location, the initial assessment, the action taken and the date of resolution. This log is the evidence that would be requested first by CQC, HSE or an insurer following any complaint or incident, and a well-maintained log demonstrating swift, appropriate action is the clearest way to show the organisation is meeting the standard that Awaab's Law has now set as the sector benchmark.
CareHomeDesk gives you compliance checklists, maintenance logs, and contractor management tools built around exactly this kind of knowledge.