When your inspector finds a defect during a LOLER thorough examination, Lolerflow records it, categorises it, and instantly alerts the people who need to act.
Start free trialUnder LOLER, defects found during a thorough examination must be reported to the duty holder in writing. If the defect poses an imminent danger, the competent person must notify both the duty holder and the relevant enforcing authority before the equipment is used again. This is not optional — it is a legal requirement under Regulation 10 of LOLER 1998 and the reporting obligations set out in Schedule 1.
Most inspection companies handle this with a phone call and a follow-up email. That leaves a gap in the audit trail. If the duty holder later claims they were not informed, or if HSE asks for evidence that the defect was reported promptly, a phone call leaves no record. Lolerflow makes defect reporting part of the inspection workflow itself, so the record is created at the same moment as the finding.
Your inspector flags the defect on their phone during the examination. Lolerflow assigns a severity category, attaches it to the Schedule 1 report, and sends an alert to the duty holder immediately. No follow-up email needed. No gap in the trail. The timestamp, the category, the description, and the recipient are all logged automatically.
LOLER thorough examination reports use three defect categories, each carrying different legal implications for both the inspection company and the duty holder. Lolerflow applies these automatically based on how the inspector categorises the finding.
Equipment must be taken out of service immediately. The competent person must notify the duty holder and the relevant enforcing authority before re-use. Failure to act on a Category A defect is a criminal offence.
Equipment may continue in use but must be repaired within a specified time period agreed between the competent person and duty holder. The duty holder must confirm the repair has been completed.
No immediate action required but the item should be monitored and addressed at the next service or examination. These observations are recorded and carried forward in the asset history.
Defect reporting in Lolerflow is integrated into the inspection workflow. There is no separate step, no second system to update, and no risk of the defect being noted during the examination but forgotten in the report.
The most common defect reporting failure mode is not negligence — it is process fragmentation. The inspector finds a defect on site, makes a note, and intends to include it in the report later. Between the site visit and the report being written, details get lost, the severity category gets misremembered, or the defect simply does not make it into the final document.
When the report does include the defect, the duty holder notification is often a separate step — a phone call, a text message, or a follow-up email. None of these create a timestamped, legally defensible record that the duty holder was informed. If the duty holder later disputes receiving notification, the inspection company has no evidence.
For Category A defects, the stakes are particularly high. Under LOLER Regulation 10, the competent person has an obligation to notify the enforcing authority — typically the HSE — if a defect represents an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury and the owner or user of the equipment does not receive the examination report within 28 days. An unrecorded notification creates ambiguity about whether this obligation was met.
When a lifting equipment incident occurs, HSE investigators will examine the thorough examination records for the equipment involved. They will look for evidence that defects were identified, properly categorised, reported to the duty holder in writing, and that any Category A defects resulted in the equipment being taken out of service before re-use.
If the records show a defect was identified but there is no evidence of written notification to the duty holder, the competent person may be found to have failed in their legal duty. If notification was given verbally but not recorded, there is no way to demonstrate it occurred.
Lolerflow's defect alert system creates an immutable record of every notification: what was reported, what category was assigned, when the alert was sent, and who received it. For inspection companies, this is not just a convenience feature — it is a legal safeguard. See also our guide to LOLER defect categories and the penalties and fines that apply when defects are not reported correctly.
Defect alerts are one part of Lolerflow's end-to-end compliance workflow. When a defect is recorded during a thorough examination, it is automatically attached to the Schedule 1 report generated at the end of the inspection. The duty holder receives the alert alongside the report, so there is never a gap between the examination being completed and the client being informed.
Defect alerts work alongside automated renewal reminders to give you a complete compliance picture across all your client sites. See also our LOLER inspection checklist for a full list of defect checks by equipment type, and our guide to examination report requirements under Schedule 1.
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