Ask any tanning salon owner where their skin assessments are kept and you'll hear a lot of answers: a filing cabinet, a ring binder, a box under the counter, "somewhere in the back". Paper forms do the job on day one. The trouble starts on day three hundred.
Why the record matters
Across the UK it's been illegal to let under-18s use a sunbed on business premises for over a decade, and good practice goes further than the age check. A proper consultation looks at skin type, medication, medical history and anything else that could make UV exposure unsafe. People with the fairest skin types, for example, shouldn't use sunbeds at all.
That record protects your clients first. It also protects you. If there's ever a question about a session, a signed and dated assessment is the thing you'll want to put your hand on.
Local rules and guidance can vary, so it's always worth checking with your local authority's environmental health team what they expect to see.
Where paper lets you down
Paper forms have three big weaknesses. They're easy to lose. Nobody notices when they go out of date. And at a busy front desk, nobody has time to go and check the binder before every session, so the check quietly stops happening.
What a good system does
A good skin assessment system does the remembering for you. It keeps the signed form with the client record, knows when it was done, and tells staff clearly when a client doesn't have a valid one before they're booked in, not after they've gone into the room.
Make it part of the routine
Whatever system you use, the aim is the same: nobody gets on a bed without an up-to-date assessment, and nobody has to rely on memory to make sure of it. Make the check part of the booking, not an extra job on top of it.