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Health and Safety Manual Update – June 2020
Health and Safety Manual Update – June 2020 is now live.
The updated Construction Health and Safety Manual Update – June 2020 is now live on www.cip-knowledge.com
Plus, employees and companies will receive manual subscriptions of the update during this month.
The latest update includes:
- A new health section – this reflects current thinking that we should view health issues on an equal footing to safety. New sections cover Mental Wellbeing; Silica; Display Screens and Musculoskeletal Diseases; and Compressed Air and Ionising Radiation. The Noise and Vibration section is now separate. Additionally, Drugs and Alcohol and Contaminated sites have different section numbers.
- Work at Height – a completely revised and re-ordered section. This follows the logic of the hierarchy of control of risk as set out in the Work at Height Regulations. The Appendix on Tube and Fittings Scaffolding has been updated by the NASC.
- Suspended Access Equipment – a review and update covering Temporary and Permanent equipment types and the addition of new images. This was created in assistance with SAEMA, the trade association committed to advancing safety, standards, and best practice in the temporary and permanent suspended access industry,
- General updates to the Training and An Introduction to the Law sections.
Health and safety directors from across the construction industry work together to produce The Health and Safety Manual. Therefore, the group represents a wide cross-section of the UK’s leading construction companies and clients.
The manual aims to provide construction companies in the UK with a useful and practical tool to help them comply with their legal duties. Furthermore, it sets out to improve how companies manage health and safety issues throughout the construction process.
New Health Section
Health and wellbeing are key factors in ensuring people at work – and those affected by work activities – are free from the risk of work-related disease, injury and mental health problems.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, 1.4 million working people suffered from a work-related illness in 2017-2018. What’s more, businesses lost nearly 27 million working days to work-related illness.
These figures far outweigh those for work-related injuries (almost 4 million). Plus, companies and individuals often overlook them and give priority to safety-related matters.
Unfortunately, specific health hazards – such as asbestos exposure – still dominate statistics. In fact, there were more than 5,000 deaths due to asbestos-related diseases. Over half of these are due to mesothelioma, a type of cancer relating to exposure to certain types of asbestos.
The benefits of focusing on health and wellbeing in the industry are significant. Not only does it lessen the risk of work-related ill-health, disease and mental disorder, but it also improves the morale and working environment of all involved.
The primary purpose of the Construction Health and Safety Manual Health section is to assist construction employers, site managers and supervisors to understand the risks to health arising from construction activities. Additionally, it offers advice on how to meet legal obligations in managing work-related ill health. This covers how to eliminate or reduce exposure and mitigate harm.
New Work at Height Section
Crucially, work at height is still the largest single cause of fatal accidents in the workplace. In construction, around half of all fatal accidents happen as a result of falls from height, for instance. Commonly, such accidents result from unsafe access to and/or unsafe work at height.
Therefore, the latest update to the CIP Construction Health and Safety Manual includes a fully re-written work at height section. Similarly, it also features an updated appendix on Tube and Fittings Scaffolding. The NASC – National Access & Scaffolding Confederation wrote the appendix.
Neil Murray, an independent consultant, said: “Falls from height remain the single greatest cause of fatal accidents in construction. I believe that the rewritten Work at Height Section can make a contribution to reducing these accidents by ensuring proper competence, planning, organisation and selection of work equipment for safe access to and safe work at height.”