A summit meeting of 171 chief executives and senior leaders in the industry yesterday signed a pledge committing their organisations to “eliminate occupational ill health and disease in my company and from the industry”.
The pledge was made after attendees heard the industry’s A-list speakers describe how the industry had “whispered” about health issues while “shouting” about safety – with the result that the industry’s toll of work-related cancer was three times higher than in any other employment sector.
For more detail on the speakers and their presentations, see our story here.
Heather Bryant, director of health and safety at Balfour Beatty and one of the driving forces behind the campaign, told the Committing Construction to a Healthier Future summit: “Today is about equalising health with safety because we not only want to leave a legacy in the things we construct, but a legacy for the people who help construct them.
Heather Bryant: “commitment”
“We are constructing the health, or the ill health, of the future. We are still exposing people to asbestos and other hazards, and we have three times as many occupational cancers as in any other sector.”
The campaign – organised by the newly-formed Health in Construction Leadership Group – will now formulate proposals for an action plan to be debated at a second summit, scheduled for 21 April.
It’s understood that the action plan will focus on measures already trialed in parts of the industry that are agreed to work, such as employing more specialists to design out health risks on site.
The plan could also involve mandating the use of new measuring technology, such as emissions and dust monitors, to record the industry’s progress over time.
CIOB president Chris Chivers, who attended the summit on behalf of the CIOB, said: “This is a fantastic initiative and we’d like to be actively involved. We’ve put ourselves up to be involved in the April summit and would also like our members to be involved – it’s very much part of what we want to do.”
Speaking to Construction Manager, Bryant explained that the summit event was designed to get the industry to the starting point, by raising awareness and clarifying some of the mixed messages around “occupational health”.
“This is a fantastic initiative and we’d like to be actively involved. We’ve put ourselves up to be involved in the April summit and would also like our members to be involved – it’s very much part of what we want to do.”
Chris Chivers, CIOB president
“Today is about starting to speak a common language, and building on the work that’s already been done,” she said. “We asked people to sign up to the commitment and nominate a senior representative who will attend the second summit and deliver on the commitment.
“We want that group to do things collectively, sharing information and identifying good practices. We want people to look within their own organisations and ask questions. But we are one industry and we want to come together on this and work collectively. We’ve so far done it in pockets, but we want to build the right future for the next generation.”
The CHLG was established last year after members of the HSE’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee, CONIAC, were given a presentation on the scale of the ill health and premature deaths suffered by workers in the industry by Dr Lesley Rushton of Imperial College, London.
CONIAC member Clive Johnson, director of health and safety at Land Securities, and now chair of CHLG, told Construction Manager that the presentation recalled the “call the action” made by John Prescott at the industry’s 2001 health and safety summit.
He added that a key objective was unravelling confusion around the terms “occupational health”, “well-being” and “occupational hygiene”, which is concerned with the removal or modification of workplace risks.
