Sustainable Occupational Health: Developments in Managing Health Risk in Construction

SUSTAINABLE OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH:

DEVELOPMENTS IN MANAGING HEALTH RISK IN CONSTRUCTION

BY SARAH NEWTON

The British Occupational Hygiene Society has been supporting workplace health prevention since 1953. Over that period, it has become more and more apparent that we all need to take a long-term view of workplace health.

This is because causes of worker ill-health and the manifestation of occupational diseases often only become obvious sometime after exposure.

As the Chartered Society for worker health protection, we believe that everyone should all be able to:

• Work healthily and in environments that are better for our physical and mental health; • Work productively and for longer; • Age well; • Require less social care and

State support through benefits and healthcare.

In practice this means that the Society’s professionals look beyond the management of hazards to the long-term control of risks.

By working in partnership, we believe we are beginning to set a blue-print for sustainable workplace health. BOHS, as a scientific charity, has characterised the key facets of supporting sustainable workplace health as:

A Anticipating and designing out

health risks at work (in materials selection, process design and industrial practices);

By working in partnership, we believe we are beginning to set a blue-print for sustainable workplace health. BOHS, as a scientific charity, has characterised the key facets of supporting sustainable workplace health...

B Focusing on understanding and

managing prevention, as well as the monitoring and treatment of illness;

C Using the full range of options to

control risk, including consideration of human factors, and the responsibility of everyone in the workplace in managing behaviours, attitudes, processes and systems;

D Targeting enhanced occupational

health services to those who need it most, taking an individual riskbased approach;

E Making occupational hygiene and

health core to mainstream STEM and Health Curricula;

F Working towards a whole

life strategy for managing the impact of workplace health exposures.

We believe that the right strategy can drive down costs to industry and the public purse, because of early intervention and targeted solutions. A partnership approach to delivering Sustainable Workplace Health

Sustainable workplace health will require effective partnerships. Such partnerships, between the public and private sectors; industry and academia; and through design and delivery are to some extent exemplified by work at sites like Hinkley Point 2 (HPC2). HPC2 highlights how sustainable workplace health might be achieved at scale. It also demonstrates how strategic leadership and expert occupational hygiene advice on large infrastructure projects can have in cascading down to transform behaviours in the supply chain.

Hinkley Point 2 At A Glance

• The first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK in over 20 years; Hinkley Point C in Somerset will provide low-carbon electricity for around 6 million homes, create thousands of jobs and bring lasting benefits to the UK economy.

We believe that the right strategy can drive down costs to industry and the public purse, because of early intervention and targeted solutions.

• Construction and operation of

Hinkley Point C will create 25,000 employment opportunities, up to 1,000 apprenticeships and 64% of the project’s construction value is predicted to go to UK companies.

The consortium delivering this incredibly complex project committed to looking at occupational hygiene and occupational health differently and, to some extent, separately. What this means is that the prevention of health exposures has been a focus in itself, rather than being a reaction to the identification of hazards on site.