The documents you need before anyone enters a confined space

Pro Site Docs · Guide

Confined space work is the area where paperwork most directly keeps people alive, and where the gap between having documents and having the right documents is widest. The Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 are short. What they ask for is not.

First: can you avoid entry altogether?

Regulation 4 requires that you do not enter a confined space to carry out work if it is reasonably practicable to do it another way. That is the first question, and it should be answered in writing. Remote inspection, cleaning from outside, or designing the task so nobody goes in are all preferable to the best-run entry. If you have not recorded why entry was necessary, you have skipped the duty that comes before every other one.

A safe system of work

Where entry is necessary, regulation 4 requires a safe system of work. In practice that is your confined space RAMS: the space itself, the specified risks, atmospheric testing before and during entry, ventilation, isolation of anything that could fill or energise the space, access and egress, communications, and who is doing what. Generic confined space RAMS are close to useless here — a chamber, a tank and a deep manhole present entirely different problems.

Emergency arrangements — before work starts

Regulation 5 requires suitable and sufficient arrangements for rescue to be in place before anyone enters. This is the duty that gets missed most. "Call 999" is not a rescue plan; the fire service will not normally arrive inside the time an unconscious casualty has. The plan needs named rescuers, the equipment they will use, how they raise the alarm, and evidence they have practised it. Rescuers must not become casualties — a large share of confined space deaths are would-be rescuers.

The entry permit and the records that go with it

A permit to work is not required by name in the regulations, but it is the standard way of controlling entry and demonstrating the safe system was actually applied on the day. Alongside it you should be holding gas test records, the isolation certificate, competence and training records for entrants, attendants and rescuers, and equipment inspection records for gas detectors, harnesses, tripods and breathing apparatus.

Get the documents ready-made

Our Confined Spaces Pack covers entry RAMS, permits, gas testing and rescue planning, or take single documents.

General guidance only. This article explains how the rules generally work in UK construction. It is not advice for your specific site, task or project, and it is not legal advice. Your own risk assessment, method statement and arrangements must be prepared and checked by a competent person for the actual work being done.