How to Verify an OSHEM Certificate (and Spot a Forged One)

A training certificate is only worth what it can prove. Forged safety certificates circulate in every industry and every region — sold to jobseekers, waved at site gates, and occasionally standing between an untrained worker and a task that can kill them. That is why every certificate OSHEM issues is verifiable, by anyone, in seconds, against the live OSHEM register. No account, no fee, no permission needed.

Verifying takes under a minute

Every OSHEM certificate carries a unique certificate number (in the form OSHEM-YYYY-NNNNN) and a QR code. Either route works: scan the QR code with any phone camera, or go to oshem.co.uk/verify.html and type the number. The register returns the holder's name, the course or qualification, and the award date — directly from OSHEM's records, not from anything printed on the paper in front of you.

What employers should actually check

Verification is only meaningful if you compare it to reality. Check three things: that the register entry exists at all; that the name on the register matches the identity document of the person in front of you — not just the name on the certificate; and that the course matches the competence you are hiring for. A genuine certificate in someone else's name is still the wrong certificate.

The tell-tale signs of a forgery

Forgers copy the look of certificates, not the systems behind them. Be suspicious of any certificate whose number returns nothing on the register, whose QR code goes anywhere other than the issuing body's own domain, or whose holder resists verification "because the site is down." Visual clues help too — mismatched fonts, altered dates, a name in a different typeface — but the register is the only test that matters. Paper can be faked; a live register entry cannot.

What OSHEM does behind the register

Certificates enter the register the moment OSHEM releases them, and only OSHEM can issue or release a certificate — Approved Training Partners deliver training and register learners, but certification itself always comes from the awarding body. Certificates found to have been obtained through malpractice are suspended or revoked, and the register reflects that immediately. If you ever encounter a suspected forged OSHEM certificate, report it to info@oshem.co.uk; every report is investigated.

For certificate holders

Your verification link is part of your credential — share it. Adding the certificate to a LinkedIn profile with its verification URL, or including the certificate number on a CV, lets any employer confirm it in seconds and sets you apart from every unverifiable claim in the pile.