It is not the same as regular maintenance – so you need one whether or not you’ve just had the truck serviced.

Here is how the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines Thorough Examination:

“Thorough examination of industrial lift trucks is required under health and safety law: LOLER 1998, which covers lifting equipment, and PUWER 1998, which deals with all other safety-related items, such as brakes, steering and tyres. Your regular inspections as part of a preventive maintenance scheme or scheduled service are not a thorough examination.”

Thorough Examination is required by law, and must take place at regular intervals that depend on the type of truck you’re running… but it will certainly be at least once a year… often more. To find out when your next Thorough Examination is due, click here to use our online calculator.

However, NOT all Thorough Examinations are created equal. It is crucial to ensure that your Thorough Examinations comprehensively cover both the lifting and the driving mechanisms of the truck: amazingly, not all of them do. Click here to see all the elements a good Thorough Examination should cover.

For peace of mind, it makes sense to get your Thorough Examination from a CFTS-accredited Competent Person. The CFTS seal is your guarantee that your truck will actually be examined carefully, and that key components such as brakes and steering will be checked along with the lifting mechanism.

For peace of mind, insist on seeing the distinctive CFTS certification mark on documents and trucks themselves…

It’s your guarantee that the truck – and the examiner – are up to scratch.

Only companies that are officially accredited to CFTS are allowed to use the distinctive “Kitemark” on literature, certification and reports – and to place the famous CFTS stickers on the trucks they inspect.

You can rest assured that any Report of Thorough Examination bearing the official CFTS mark has been carried out by an experienced, accredited examiner in accordance with stringent standards and quality procedures.

Likewise, the CFTS sticker on a forklift truck shows that it has received a genuinely Thorough Examination, satisfying both LOLER 98 and PUWER 98 regulations.

Without this mark, a truck, company or examiner may or may not meet safe, legal standards – crucially, there’s no way to tell.

And with hundreds of CFTS accredited companies from Inverness to Cornwall and Great Yarmouth to Pembrokeshire – not to mention Donegal to Waterford – there’s really no reason to take that risk.

Find a CFTS-accredited company near you with our handy postcode search.