Night Check & Bed Check Log Template (Free Printable)

When to use a night check log

Use it on any overnight shift where staff walk the building on a schedule: group homes, shelters, residential programs, dorms, camps and care homes. The checks go by different names, like bed checks, night checks, overnight rounds or room checks, but the record is the same: a line for every check, made at the time, by the person who made it.

Print one sheet per shift, or more if the night has a lot of checks, and number the pages. Keep it on a clipboard staff carry, so each line gets written in the hall, not at the desk.

Who sets how often you check

Your licensing rules, your program's policy or your contract set how often checks happen and what the log must show, and they vary by state and by type of program. Find the rule that applies to you, write the interval in the Checks every box, and ask your licensing agency or program director if it isn't clear. This template gives you the columns most overnight logs need. Add any your rules ask for.

What to write in each column

At the top, fill in the facility, the unit or wing, the date, the shift, who's on duty, the check interval and the on-call contact for the night. Then one line per area, every round:

A filled-in example

Here's part of an overnight shift at a made-up group home with hourly checks and two staff on duty.

Rooms are numbers, every N has a note, and the times aren't neat. The unlocked back door shows up again in the incident notes at the foot of the sheet, with what was done about it.

Keep residents' names off it

A night check log records that a check happened: when, where and by whom. Name areas and rooms by number, never by resident. Anything about a person's health, behavior or care belongs in the records your program keeps for that, under the access rules that go with them. A check log isn't a care record. If something happens with a resident during a check, write "see incident report" here and put the details where your policy says.

How to fill it in well

• Write each check when you make it. Never fill in lines ahead of time, and never fill in a missed check later. If a check was late or missed, write the real time and why.
• One line per area, every round. Don't write "all checks fine" across the night.
• Mark Y or N in both columns. Use N/A only where there's no door or exit to check.
• Write a note for every N. What you found, what you did, who you told.
• Use the same area names all night, matching your floor plan.
• Hand it over. Both staff sign at the end of the shift, and a supervisor reviews it the next morning.

Why a signed sheet isn't proof on its own

Round sheets are self-reported, and they can be falsified. A well-known example comes from a federal jail, not a group home. In report 23-085 (June 2023), the U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General reviewed the Federal Bureau of Prisons' custody of Jeffrey Epstein. Staff were required to make rounds at least twice an hour, recorded on round sheets that a supervisor reviewed. No 30-minute rounds were made after about 10:40 p.m., and the report found:

The lesson for any overnight log: a supervisor who actually reads it, spot checks at hours nobody expects, and a record that can't be filled in afterward. See how to verify security patrols.

Common mistakes

• Every check logged exactly on the hour, which reads like a sheet filled in all at once.
• A resident's name in the area or notes column.
• A blank line where a check was missed, with nothing saying why.
• An N with no note.
• Nobody reading the sheet until there's a complaint.

How long to keep night check logs

Your licensing rules, program policy or contract decide that, along with your organization's records policy, so check them and keep the longest period any of them sets. Keep any sheet tied to an incident, an injury, a complaint or an investigation for longer, with the incident report. Store the sheets by facility and date.

Doing it by scanning instead

With PatrolBadges, you put a QR sticker or NFC tag in each hall and by each exit. Staff scan it with their phone's camera as they pass, with no app and no account: they type their own PIN once a shift, so every check has a name on it. Each scan is stamped with the time and GPS, and a short OK/Problem checklist, like "Hall quiet and clear?" or "Back door locked?", takes the place of the Y/N columns. A Problem needs a note and opens an incident, with photos if you need them.

Set the night's schedule, like every 30 or 60 minutes from 22:00 to 06:00, and the on-call manager is emailed when a round ends with an area unscanned or hasn't started. Staff working alone have an SOS button, and welfare checks tell you when someone goes quiet. The night's report is emailed each morning, and it prints, exports to CSV and has a private link. It records checks, not residents, and isn't a care record. It's free for 5 checkpoints, and Pro is $9 a month for 10, then $1 each.