Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Templates & Guidance

To create a risk assessment for your kitchen fitting business, identify hazards, decide who could be harmed and how, put suitable control measures in place, and review the assessment regularly.

A kitchen fitter risk assessment should reflect what you actually do on site, such as strip-out and removal work, handling heavy units and worktops, cutting and drilling, fitting wall units and extraction, and working around other trades in shared areas. Start by listing hazards linked to those tasks, including manual handling, power tools, MDF and wood dust, slips and trips, work at height, noise and vibration, and live services (electrics, water and sometimes gas). Then record who could be harmed — kitchen fitters, kitchen installers, labourers, clients, visitors, delivery drivers, and other trades — and how harm could happen, including serious injury, ill health, fire, flooding, and property damage. Document realistic control measures, brief your team, and review the assessment when the job changes (new layout, different access, more trades on site, or new equipment).

To make this straightforward, our Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template is pre-filled with common kitchen installation hazards and controls, so you can quickly tailor it to how your business operates. For an all-in-one compliance solution, our Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle includes over 60 essential health and safety documents that make managing health and safety across your business simple.

Yes — kitchen fitters must complete a risk assessment to identify and manage risks linked to their work activities.

Anyone running a kitchen fitting business has a duty to assess and control risks that could affect workers, clients, other trades, and anyone else on site. This includes common kitchen installation hazards such as heavy lifting, cutting and drilling, work at height, dust, hazardous substances (adhesives and sealants), and the added risk of working around live services and other trades.

Our Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template comes pre-filled with industry-relevant content that you can easily edit and adapt to fit your business. It provides a clear, professional format you can use straight away, and the Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle adds policies, accident forms, safety guidance and more to support ongoing compliance.

If your business employs five or more people, risk assessments must be recorded in writing. Even if you’re a self-employed kitchen fitter or a smaller kitchen installation business, keeping written risk assessments is strongly recommended because it helps demonstrate a responsible approach, supports insurance and client requirements, and protects you if an incident happens.

The most important hazards are live services, manual handling, power tools, dust exposure, and work at height, plus the added risks of overlapping trades and occupied premises.

A strong kitchen fitter risk assessment should cover the real hazards that cause injury and claims in kitchen installation work. Prioritise live services (electric shock, gas risks and water leaks), heavy manual handling (worktops, appliances, tall housings), and high-risk cutting and drilling tasks (saws, routers, grinders and kickback). Include dust exposure from MDF, timber and masonry, especially during strip-out and chasing, plus slips and trips from debris, trailing leads and shared access routes. Work at height is also key where wall units, extraction and finishing work require steps or platforms.

If you want a ready-made structure that already includes these hazards and practical controls, use our Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template, which you can easily tailor to the operations of your kitchen installation business. Where substances are used, add COSHH Risk Assessments for adhesives, sealants, solvents and cleaners.

Kitchen fitters should coordinate sequencing, control work zones, communicate isolations, and prevent incompatible tasks happening at the same time.

Working alongside electricians, plumbers, plasterers and flooring installers is a major risk factor in kitchen fitting because hazards overlap and the space is often tight. The best controls are planning and coordination: agree the programme, allocate work zones, and set clear “hold points” for high-risk stages such as isolations, first fix, cutting, energisation/commissioning, and final fix. Communicate when water or electrics are isolated or reinstated, keep shared access routes and fire exits clear, and use barriers or signage to stop people walking through cutting or drilling areas. If congestion increases risk, re-sequence rather than trying to push through.

Our Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template includes overlap and shared-work-area controls, and the Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle helps you keep consistent site rules, briefings, and reporting in place across every job.

Having a health and safety policy is a strongly recommended best practice measure for all kitchen fitting businesses, helping you set clear expectations and manage risks consistently.

If your kitchen fitting business employs five or more people, your health and safety policy must be in writing. A good policy sets out your commitment to managing risks, explains roles and responsibilities, and outlines how safety is controlled across your kitchen fitting operation. For kitchen fitters and kitchen installers, this commonly includes arrangements for manual handling, power tool use, dust control, work at height, working around live services (electrics, water and gas), managing hazardous substances such as adhesives and sealants, accident reporting, and safe working when other trades are present.

Using a professionally produced Health and Safety Policy template helps ensure your paperwork is clear, practical, and aligned with the way you actually work. Our template is designed to be easily adaptable for kitchen fitters, and it's also included within the Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle which provides an all-in-one compliance solution.

Control dust by capturing it at source, using suitable extraction and vacuums, avoiding dry sweeping, and using respiratory protection when needed.

Dust control is a major health issue in kitchen fitting because MDF and wood dust can cause respiratory irritation and contribute to long-term ill health. Practical controls include using on-tool extraction, keeping cutting areas separated from occupied parts of the building, and cleaning using vacuums rather than brushing or blowing dust around. Plan dusty tasks for times when fewer people are present, and use local extraction at source and, where ducted extraction is in place, ensure it vents safely to the outside and doesn’t recirculate dusty air back into the building. Where adhesives, sealants, primers or cleaners are used alongside dusty work, it’s important to control combined exposure and ensure ventilation. The combination can feel significantly harsher than either exposure on its own, making symptoms more likely and increasing the chance someone stops using controls because they feel uncomfortable or rushed.

Our COSHH Risk Assessments help you document controls for products used during kitchen installation, and the Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template includes dust hazards and realistic on-the-job controls to keep standards consistent.

Yes — if you use substances that can harm health, you should assess the risks and put controls in place, including storage, ventilation and PPE. This can be done using a COSHH risk assessment.

Kitchen fitters and kitchen installers often use adhesives, sealants, solvents, expanding foam, cleaning chemicals, and sometimes paints or primers. These can cause dermatitis, chemical burns, respiratory irritation, headaches, and fire risks if flammable. A COSHH-style assessment helps you identify the hazards, decide who could be exposed (workers, clients and other trades), and set controls such as ventilation, safe storage, correct application, spill response, and suitable gloves and eye protection. It also helps you brief your team and prove you have thought about exposure risks.

Our COSHH Risk Assessment Templates provide a clear format you can use for common products, and the Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle includes the COSHH risk assessment template plus over 60 essential supporting documents to help manage chemical safety properly.

If you operate from premises, you must complete a fire risk assessment and have suitable fire safety arrangements in place.

Fire risk isn’t only a site issue. Many kitchen fitting businesses have workshops, storage units, offices, or lock-ups with tools, packaging, timber products, batteries and charging equipment, and sometimes flammable liquids. A fire risk assessment helps you identify ignition sources, fuel sources, people at risk, and the actions needed to prevent fire and ensure safe evacuation. It also supports practical controls such as housekeeping, safe storage, electrical checks, and clear escape routes.

For a ready-to-use solution, our Fire Risk Assessment template guides you through the process, helping you assess fire risks in your premises and document your fire safety arrangements clearly. The Essential Fire Safety Template Bundle adds signage, fire safety guidance, and a fire safety logbook so you can record routine fire safety actions, fire alarm tests, fire drills, and equipment checks as part of day-to-day fire safety management.

Use an accident report form to record accidents, near misses and hazards so you can learn from incidents, demonstrate compliance, and protect your business if a claim arises.

Accidents and near misses in kitchen fitting can involve cuts, slips, manual handling injuries, dust exposure, falls from steps, electric shocks, or property damage from leaks and tool strikes. Recording what happened, who was involved, what immediate action was taken, and what you changed to prevent a repeat helps you improve safety and shows a responsible approach to clients and insurers. It also helps you spot patterns, such as repeated injuries during worktop handling or incidents linked to poor housekeeping.

Our Accident Report Form provides a clear, professional layout to capture the key details you may be asked for later, including the date and location, people involved, a description of what happened, injuries sustained, immediate actions taken, witness details (if relevant), and any corrective actions to prevent recurrence. Keeping these records organised supports safer working practices and helps demonstrate due diligence if an insurer, client, or enforcing authority requests evidence.

Use clear documentation that matches your real work, and be able to show risk assessments, policies, training and accident records when requested.

Kitchen fitting businesses are often asked to prove they manage risk properly, especially on commercial jobs or where multiple trades are involved. The most useful evidence includes risk assessments tailored to your business operations, a health and safety policy showing how you manage responsibilities, COSHH assessments for substances used, accident reporting records, and fire safety documentation for any premises you operate from. The key is consistency: documents should be clear, current, filled in properly, and applied on site through briefings and safe working methods.

The simplest and most efficient way to build this is with our Kitchen Fitter Health and Safety Template Bundle, which brings everything together, supported by individual documents such as the Kitchen Fitter Risk Assessment Template, Health and Safety Policy, COSHH Risk Assessments, Accident Report Form, and Fire Risk Assessment.