During a two-week purge on construction sites across the country last month (June), Health & Safety Execvutive inspectors tried to emphasise the message that avoiding longer-term health issues, such as silica dust and vibration injury (HAVS), is as important as avoiding accidents.

Inspectors were looking in particular at:

• respiratory risks from dusts including silica materials;
• exposure to other hazardous substances such as cement and lead paint;
• manual handling,
• noise and vibration

What did they find?

Final figures have yet to be confirmed, but conditions were so poor at some of the 560 sites visited that work had to be stopped on at least 13 occasions. Enforcement notices were served at 85 sites (13 Prohibition Notices and 107 Improvement Notices) and 239 health-related Notices of Contravention were served at 201 sites.

HSE’s Chief Inspector, Heather Bryant, said: "To encourage the industry to treat health issues in the same way as safety, HSE’s inspectors will consolidate the efforts of this initiative throughout the rest of the year by looking at the prevention and control of health risks in construction, alongside their continued assessment of the management of safety risk issues.

“We will make sure the construction industry thinks health as well as safety.”