Pubs, restaurants and bars are consistently among the highest-risk environments for slip and fall claims in Ireland. This article explains exactly what PTV value the HSA expects, how hospitality-specific factors change the picture, and what a realistic testing programme looks like.
Hospitality venues are disproportionately exposed to slip and fall claims. Spilled drinks, kitchen grease, wet entrance matting in an Irish winter, and polished stone underfoot all combine to produce floors that can swing from safe to dangerous within minutes.
If you run an Irish pub, restaurant or bar, the question we get asked most is: "What PTV value does the HSA actually accept?" Here is the straight answer — and the more useful context around it.
The short answer
The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) follows the UK Slip Resistance Group (UKSRG) classification, which is also adopted by the HSE in Britain. The thresholds are:
| PTV | Slip Potential | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 36 or higher | Low | Acceptable |
| 25 to 35 | Moderate | Needs active management |
| 24 or lower | High | Unacceptable — must be addressed |
For hospitality venues, these thresholds apply in both dry and contaminated conditions. The contamination test matters far more than the dry test, because contamination is precisely what happens in a pub or restaurant — drinks spill, kitchens leak, customers track rainwater in.
Why hospitality is different
Most slip-testing advice is written as if floors are only walked on by sober people wearing sensible shoes in dry conditions. In hospitality, none of that is a given. The combination of factors that pushes hospitality venues into the claims register includes:
- Alcohol consumption — impaired balance and slower reaction times
- Footwear — customers in heels, evening shoes, wet trainers
- Contamination — spilled drinks, food debris, ice, water
- Wet entrance matting in Irish rainfall conditions
- Kitchen-to-bar transitions where wet feet cross polished surfaces
- Dance floor areas where sudden movement amplifies slip consequences
For these reasons, many experienced assessors argue that hospitality venues should aim above the 36 PTV threshold — ideally 40+ in wet conditions in the highest-risk zones.
Zone-by-zone PTV targets for Irish hospitality
A sensible risk-based approach to a typical Irish pub or restaurant looks like this:
| Zone | Target Wet PTV | Why |
|---|---|---|
| External entrance / lobby | 40+ | Wet weather, customer arrival |
| Main bar area | 36+ | Drink spillage, busy footfall |
| Behind the bar | 36+ | Staff wearing standard footwear, constant contamination |
| Kitchen | 36+ | Grease, water, heavy traffic |
| Kitchen-to-front transition | 40+ | Wet shoes onto polished restaurant floor |
| Cellar | 36+ | Damp conditions, keg lines, deliveries |
| Toilets | 36+ | Water contamination |
| Dance floor | 36+ | High footfall + rapid movement |
| External smoking area | 36+ | Exposed to rain, dropped items |
The common traps
Three patterns come up repeatedly in our Irish hospitality work:
1. The "it was fine when we installed it" problem. Flooring that tested at PTV 44 dry and 38 wet when new can drop to 28 wet within three to five years, especially in busy bars. Polishing from heels, cleaning chemical build-up, and wear of the surface micro-texture all reduce slip resistance invisibly over time. The owner's memory of the original test result is not current compliance evidence.
2. The "good-looking tile" problem. Architect-specified polished porcelain, limestone and polished concrete all look fantastic in hospitality design. They also routinely fail wet PTV tests — often coming in below 20 when contaminated. If a supplier or designer does not volunteer a PTV value, assume it is low.
3. The "cleaning-chemical trap". Some cleaning products leave residues that progressively reduce slip resistance. A floor that was compliant at install can fail within a year simply because of the soap or polish being used on it. This is why periodic re-testing matters.
What good looks like
An Irish hospitality business that is doing this properly will have:
- A UKAS ISO 17025 accredited baseline test covering all customer-accessible and staff-only zones, with PTV values recorded dry and wet
- A written slip-risk assessment naming the person responsible for each zone
- An annual re-test as a minimum (quarterly for high-traffic venues)
- A matting and cleaning specification matched to the test results
- A claims file with every test report stored, dated and accessible
Total annual cost for a typical single-site pub or restaurant is typically €500–€1,200 for the testing itself — a small fraction of the excess on a single slip-and-fall claim.
What to do if your floor is currently below 25 PTV wet
If you discover a floor is reading below 25 PTV in wet conditions, you have a few options, in rough order of preference:
- Address the contamination source — better entrance matting, revised cleaning schedule, wet-weather signage
- Treat the floor surface — there are proprietary acid-etch treatments that can lift PTV by 10–15 points; these must be independently tested after treatment
- Replace the floor — specifying a genuinely slip-resistant surface from the outset
What you should not do is ignore it. The moment someone falls on a floor you knew was below 25 PTV wet, the ability to argue "so far as reasonably practicable" collapses.
Summary
The HSA accepts the UKSRG classification: 36+ PTV is safe, 25–35 needs management, below 25 is unacceptable. For Irish hospitality, we recommend aiming for 40+ wet PTV in the highest-risk zones, documenting everything via UKAS-accredited testing, and re-testing annually at minimum.
The cost of doing this is trivial compared to the consequences of not.
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