HSE Construction Health Inspection Initiative – October 2020

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October 2020 will see HSE carrying out its latest construction health inspection initiative with health and safety inspectors targeting construction sites across Great Britain.

Details of the Initiative:

  • The initiative will run from Monday 5 – Friday 30 October
  • As with previous health inspection initiatives, the focus will be on respiratory risks.
  • COVID-security is a critical health risk and will also be covered by the initiative.

 

The purpose of this initiative is twofold:

  • To support HSE’s continuing strategy to improve the health of construction workers.
  • To align with the wider government agenda to get people back to workplaces safely and so support economic recovery.

 

Inspections will focus on respiratory risks and occupational lung disease; looking at the measures businesses have in place to protect their workers’ lungs from the likes of asbestos, silica and wood dust. Inspectors will also be looking for evidence of employers and workers knowing the risks, planning their work and using the right controls. If necessary, they will use enforcement to make sure people are protected.

While the primary focus will be on health during this programme of inspections, if a HSE inspector identifies any other areas of concern, they will take the necessary enforcement action to deal with them. This will include making sure that businesses are doing all they can to protect their workers from the risk of coronavirus and make workplaces COVID-secure.

Further information:

  • This is not a one-off initiative but is part of HSE’s wider-phased, strategic plan developed to improve health within the construction industry.
  • HSE undertook two construction-specific respiratory risk inspection initiatives in 2019, accompanied by awareness raising activity through HSE’s Go Home Healthy brand and promoting campaign key messages. Those initiatives built on previous work going back several years, including engagement with wider industry initiatives. There is also other, related stakeholder work ongoing, including CECA’s Stop Make a Change 2020 campaign and the Asbestos Leadership Group.
  • This initiative is part of HSE’s response to the recommendation within the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) For Respiratory Health’s recent report Silica – the next asbestos?, that a targeted industry awareness campaign is developed and implemented for those at risk of developing silicosis.

 

We are aware, from several retained companies, that inspections by the HSE have increased over the previous month with focus on the COVID measures being implemented on sites.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0