Construction related ill-health, the sick elephant in the room

James Ritchie
Head of Corporate Affairs at Association of Project Safety
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Post date: Thursday, 19th January 2012

While safety issues in construction will always grab headlines, ill-health in the sector continues to claim hundreds, if not thousands, of lives every year. James Ritchie at the Association of Project Safety asks whether its time the construction industry adopted a zero tolerance approach to ill health.

There has been a singular lack of progress with reducing health problems in construction since the Heath & Safety Work etc Act, 1974. This position is reinforced by an Annex to the 2010 HSE Report Update on the Work of Construction Division, which states baldly that the estimated rates of self-reported illness “…shows no significant trend”.

By comparison with accident or injury causes there are 30 times more deaths in construction that are health related, and four times more working days are lost that are health, not safety, related. Twenty tradesmen die each week from asbestos related disease and there are 500 deaths each year from cancer related to silica exposure. We really do not know the extent of construction related ill-health – the figures we have are just the tip of a massive illhealth iceberg because there is no real lifetime tracking of construction-related illhealth! What we do know, however, is that construction ill-health is costing at least £760 million each year.

So why do we take so little notice of construction ill-health issues? Why do we still not take seriously the long-term consequences of exposures to noise, vibration, dust, chemicals and musculoskeletal stress? We all seem to be missing the point – construction ill-health is the Really Big Issue – and we need to do something about it! Congratulating ourselves about reduced death rates is fine – but the industry needs now to do as much, if not more, about ill-health rates.

The Association for Project Safety (APS) has said in the past that “Ill-health issues need to be a serious focus of attention – so that all who are involved in construction are aware that these are matters that cannot be ‘given the nod’, that all processes, materials and circumstances that can give rise to ill-health should be eliminated wherever possible, or at least reduced to absolutely minimum exposure levels, so that all who work in construction on our projects can go home safe and healthy – and remain so.”

It is perhaps time that ill-health is seen as a ‘zero tolerance’ issue by the construction industry, perhaps that CDM Co-ordinators should be required to monitor what is happening on construction sites and report back to the client who can/must/should make sure that construction ill-health issues are being addressed and their consequence avoided on all projects.

Ill-health risks are there on all projects not just the big ones. The consensual approach has had 36 years to bite – and it clearly hasn’t – so someone now needs to make sure that all workers are given the same opportunities to go home after work each day and ultimately to retire in good health. CDM-Co-ordinators are already there on most projects and they could be there on many more (including the smaller ones that are giving rise to the most accidents and injuries).

APS believes it is totally unreasonable for construction workers to be paying with their ears, hands, eyes, backs, lungs and lives for the parsimony of construction clients and the laziness of designers and constructors and then for the costs of this ill health to be placed at the door of the taxpayer.

We cannot go on as we are – there is a need for dramatic changes to attitudes and control of construction ill health. All we need is imagination, energy and a willingness to attack the problem and to take the first step forward on what will inevitably be a long journey.

This article first appeared in Development Services & Sustainability Directory 2012. To read the entire publication, click the ebook.

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