Harness inspection, defined: checking a fall arrest harness, lanyard and connectors for cuts, wear, heat or chemical damage and failed stitching, before each use by the wearer and periodically by a competent person.
Harness inspection (fall protection equipment inspection, in wider terms) is the examination of a safety harness and everything clipped to it, lanyards, energy absorbers, connectors and anchor slings, for any damage that would stop the system arresting a fall. Webbing and rope degrade from abrasion, cuts, UV, heat, chemicals and simple age, and none of that shows on a harness hanging in a van.
The definition matters because a harness is inspected in two different ways by two different people. In the UK the Work at Height Regulations 2005 require personal fall protection equipment to be inspected so it stays safe, and PUWER 1998 sits behind that for maintenance. The product standard BS EN 365 requires a periodic examination at least every 12 months by a competent person, following the manufacturer's instructions. HSE guidance on inspecting fall arrest equipment made from webbing or rope (INDG367) goes further: a pre-use check by the wearer every time, a detailed inspection at least every six months, increased to every three months for frequently used equipment or arduous environments such as demolition and steel erection, plus interim inspections where the risk assessment calls for them. In the United States, OSHA requires the wearer to inspect the equipment before each use. The wearer's check and the competent person's inspection are separate duties, and the records are separate too.
What a harness pre-use check covers
The wearer does it before putting the harness on, and it is tactile as well as visual: the whole length of the webbing runs through the hands, bent into a curve so cuts and abrasion open up.
- Webbing: cuts, frayed edges, abrasion, glazed or hardened patches from heat, discolouration or stiffness from chemicals.
- Stitching: pulled, cut or missing stitches, especially at the D-ring and buckle terminations.
- Hardware: D-rings, buckles and adjusters free of cracks, distortion, corrosion or sharp edges; adjusters grip.
- Energy absorber: cover intact, no sign the tear-out element has deployed.
- Connectors: gates close and lock under their own action, no bent or seized parts.
- Label: serial number, manufacturer and date of manufacture still legible, next inspection date not passed.
Anything found, and the harness is not worn. Guidance is unambiguous that a harness or lanyard that has arrested a fall is withdrawn immediately and goes to a competent person to decide whether it is destroyed.
The detailed inspection and who is competent
The detailed inspection repeats the same examination in good light, without time pressure, by someone trained on the specific equipment type who knows what the manufacturer says about it. It is recorded: the serial number, date, inspector, findings and the decision (fit for use, withdraw, destroy). Many organisations attach a tag or a coloured cable tie to the harness showing the inspection month. Inspector competence and inspection frequency cover the reasoning behind both.
Harness inspection example: a telecoms rigger and a deployed absorber
A rigger arrives at a rooftop mast site and runs the pre-use check on a harness and twin-tail lanyard that came out of the shared kit store. The webbing is fine. The label is worn to the point where the serial number cannot be read. Then, at the energy absorber, the cover is split and a few centimetres of the tear-out webbing are showing. Somebody has loaded this lanyard, whether in a fall or a heavy snag, and put it back on the shelf without saying so. The rigger photographs the absorber and the illegible label, quarantines the kit and uses the spare set. The photographs give the safety manager two things: proof the lanyard has been withdrawn, and a reason to find out who used it last and why nothing was reported. Without the photos, the account is "a lanyard looked dodgy" and the same kit may reappear next week.
What harness inspection does not do
It does not make the anchor point safe, it does not check that the fall clearance below the worker is enough for the lanyard to deploy, and it does not confirm the rescue plan exists. Those belong to the working at height inspection and the job's risk assessment. It also does not extend a harness's life past the manufacturer's stated maximum, whatever condition it appears to be in.
The mistakes are consistent across industries: pooled harnesses with no way to tell who wore what, pre-use checks done by glancing at the harness while it hangs on a hook, labels painted over or worn away so the serial number and date of manufacture are lost, a harness kept after arresting a fall because it looks fine, and detailed inspection records that exist only as a tag with a month written on it.
Where the record goes
Each harness and lanyard needs its own file, indexed by serial number: date of manufacture, date of first use, every detailed and interim inspection with the inspector's name, and any withdrawal. That file is what gets requested after an incident, and it is what proves the equipment was managed rather than just owned. Photographs taken at each inspection, showing the label, the absorber and any defect, turn a one-line "pass" into inspection evidence a third party can look at years later.
Venta Capture, a product of VentaVid, runs the check as a guided flow: the wearer or the competent person opens a link or scans the QR on the harness label, works step by step through the webbing, stitching, hardware, absorber and label on their own phone in the mobile browser with no app, photographs each item where the flow asks, and the submission arrives timestamped and sealed in the review inbox, filed against that serial number. See the Venta Capture pages.
In practice: see how field service teams use Venta Capture.