Construction Health & Safety News, Advice and Information from PP Construction Safety

Clients and designers need to act on lung disease and other health risks

HSE has now issued the finalised the Construction Sector Plan for 2017 onward which puts health risks and action by CDM 2015 clients, designers and principal designers at the centre of regulator priorities.

Construction industry health and safety performance has “improved over the past decade” with the number and rate of fatal incidents, work-related injury and ill-health showing a general, long-term downward trend.

HSE is concerned that the levels of incidents and ill-health remain high with recent signs of the numbers leveling off rather than continuing to decline.

Lung disease and MSDs above the average

Developments in the management of health risks have not kept pace with safety improvements.

The construction sector has a statistically significantly higher rate of occupational lung disease and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) than the average for all industries.

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Construction will continue to be a priority sector for HSE and the Sector Plan declares that HSE want to see a continuation of the downward trends which will be tackled by achieving the following three outcomes:

1. CDM 2015 – embedding the principles of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM);
2. Ill-Health – focusing on a reduction in the cases of occupational lung disease, MSDs and work-related stress; and
3. Small Businesses – supporting small businesses to achieve improved risk management and control.

In particular HSE will:

• Clients and Designers – take proportionate action towards compliance with CDM 2015 by “collaborating” with construction clients, principal designers and designers; and
• Health Risks – directing inspection and enforcement at those failing to manage and control risks health risks, refurbishment activity and asbestos removal. Targeted visits will be undertaken to encourage self-assessment and progressive development of health risk management arrangements.

Other actions planned by HSE

• Manual Handling – engaging with supply chains to reduce risks from manual handling and improve the provision of welfare facilities across the sector.
• Designer Knowledge – engaging professional bodies to enhance the skills and knowledge of future designers through effective teaching of design risk management;
• Working with others – engaging with the tripartite Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) and other stakeholder groups to promote industry ownership of effective health and safety risk management.
• SMEs and CDM 2015 – research to develop interventions which help small and micro construction businesses comply proportionately with CDM 2015;
• Blue Tape – helping to identify and tackle unnecessary business-on-business burdens (blue tape);
• BIM – demonstrating the effective use of building information modelling to improve the sharing of risk information, coordination and collaboration throughout the design and construction process;
• Catastrophic incidents – strategic interventions with major projects and developing clear standards of construction risk leadership and leading performance indicators.

This article was posted on 27th September 2017