Construction Health & Safety Policy at Work Act 1974 - Essay Example

?Health & Safety and Risk Assessment 4 BU 022 CONSTRUCTION HEALTH & SAFETY POLICY Assignment No 2 Submitted to Michael Gallanagh Construction Health & Safety Policy Introduction The health and safety issue in construction work has been the major source of concern due to the potential hazards and frequency of accidents involved in the activity. The legislation on the subject has institutionalized the requirement of health and safety at managerial level. The primary objective of theses legislations is to ensure effective health and safety management at all tiers. Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 The basis of all legislation on the issue is health and safety at work Act 1974. The Act defines the general duties which employers have towards employees, members of the public, employees have to themselves and to each other. In general terms it can be defined as “It is the responsibility of employer to ensure the health and safety of employees along with welfare at all stages of employment”. The Act with 28 main sections came into force in 1975 with the purpose to bring all the workers of all occupations under the cover of legislation. The revision of the law and new regulations paved way for more comprehensive understanding and implementation of legislation with the passage of time. Mainly most of the legislation in this regard is done through the regulations instead of through parliament. European Six pack The commonly known six pack regulations on health and safety is group of regulations which were introduced in Europe on January 1993.The inspiration to develop such legislation was to harmonize the health and safety law throughout the Europe under the frame work directive. These regulations put into practice various European directions on health and safety issues and also elucidate how employers must fulfill with their duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) 1974. These legislations and regulations are enforced throughout the United Kingdom except Northern Ireland where similar legislations with different name are implemented. The European six packs comprises of following:- 1. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 2. The Display Screen Equipment Regulations 3. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 4. The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 5. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 6. The Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations Approved Codes of Practice (AcoPs) The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations and the Workplace Health and Safety and Welfare Regulations mentioned above have Approved Codes of Practice (AcoPs). These have been approved by the Health and Safety Commission and give useful recommendations on what should be done to fulfill the requirement of the law. While employers and others do not have to follow AcoPs needs to prove that their alternative arrangements ensure same or better standards of health and safety. The salient aspects of each regulation are briefly discussed in subsequent paragraphs. 1. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations These regulations contains duties of employers, self employed workers and employees. The rights of trade unions safety representatives are also elucidated in these regulations. The employer duties encompasses on assessment of risk for the safety of workers, arrangements for implementation of health and safety measures, facilitate in compliance of safety measures by effective means, ensure emergency procedures, adequate training/instructions of employees and sharing of work place. The employees’ duties elaborate the use of equipment and substance in accordance with training, reporting of matters and shortcoming in health and safety issues. The trade union safety representative duties mainly focus on consulting the employer on measures for safety and health of workers. There are total 19 regulations which describes in detail the management related duties, risk assessment, training, health and safety arrangements etc. 2. The Display Screen Equipment Regulations These regulations clarify display screen equipment (DSE) such as visual display units (VDUs), microfiche and process control screens. The regulations relate wherever DSE is used, including offices, classrooms, computer suites, hospital wards and work at home. The employer’s duties while using display screen equipment is to ensure that DSE workstation is as per standard, assessment of health risk for employees’ due to DSE workstation, Managing work load, protection of eyes, training and testing on any negative impact on eyesight. The seven regulations includes definitions, assessment of work stations, their standards, breaks and change of activities, eye and eye sight testing, training and information. 3. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations These regulations deals with physical lifting, carrying and moving load. The load may be an object, people or animal. These regulations are implemented whenever any type of manual handling is required. There are no limits set out for maximum weight. The regulations necessitate full assessment of all risks including the task, load and working environment. The regulations are based on ‘ergonomics’ which means fitting the job to the person rather than the person to the job. Employer is responsible for any hazardous manual handling operations, measures to reduce the risk of injury, risk assessment and training of workers. Employees’ duties are to make complete and suitable use of any system of work provided for employees by their employer to reduce risks of physical handling injuries. The main five regulations specify the definitions of loads, injury, manual handling operations, duties, risk assessments. 4. The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations These regulations cover the Personal Protective Equipment’ (PPE) including protective clothing, hearing and respiratory protective equipment. It includes the duties of employer, employees’ and self employed workers. In these regulation employers are responsible for provision of PPE, Selection of suitable PPE, Maintenance of PPE, and training on use of PPE. The provision of all PPE free of charge is the sole responsibility of employer. The employees’ are bound to use all PPE in accordance with training and standards, reporting of loss and defects in PPE and its safe return after use. The eleven regulations deal with definition of PPE, its storage, maintenance, provision and training etc. 5. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations These regulations effectively deals with all type of equipment needed for work and describes the use of any machinery, appliances, tools and apparatus. The suitability of equipment to be employed, its maintenance, information and training to workers is the responsibility of employer besides confirming the UK enactment implementing EC directives listed. The thirty regulations amply cover equipment suitability criteria, maintenance and related issues. 4. The Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations These regulations lay down minimum standards for workplaces and work in or near buildings. Unlike previous legislation, these regulations apply to most types of workplace except transport, construction sites and domestic premises. These regulations apply in a limited way to temporary worksites and to outdoors agricultural and forestry work. The work place must be suitable for all workers including for disable person if any. This regulation lay down numerous responsibilities on employer like maintenance, ventilation, temperature control, traffic, escalators, toilet, washing, water, restrooms etc. The twenty five regulations gives details of duties of employer or person in control of premises. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007(CDM) The CDM regulation was enforced on 6 April 2007 and applied in Great Britain. The regulations dealing with construction work consist of following five parts. 1. Part I This part of regulations clearly explains the interpretation of various terms being used and application of CDM. 2. Part II The part two deals with general management duties applying to construction projects. These comprise of competence, co-operation, co-ordination, general principles of prevention, election by clients. It also explains client’s duty in relation to arrangements for managing projects/information, duties of designers, designs prepared or modified outside Great Britain and duties of contractors. 3. Part III It encompasses additional duties where project is notifiable. It also explains duties of clients beside additional duties of designer, contractors and general duties of CDM contractors. 4. Part IV It deals with duties in relation to and health and safety on construction site. It covers the details of application of regulations, work place safety, stability, security and prevention of risk from fire. 5. Part V This part deals with civil liability, enforcement in respect of fire, transitional provisions, revocations and amendments. Effect of Latest legislation. The legislation on the subject have reduced the fatal accidents because large number of accidents of different types and intensities frequently occurred in past during different construction activities causing personal injury or property damage. The effect of implementation of these legislations can be visualized with the statistics of different types of accidents as shown below:- 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04 04/05 05/06 06/07 07/08 08/09 09/10 Fatal (a) 5.9 4.4 3.9 3.7 3.5 3.0 3.8 3.4 2.5 2.2 Major (b) 380.9 350.7 359.3 349.8 322.7 305.8 299.1 266.7 230.1 230.0 Over-3-day (b) 829.2 787.0 797.7 726.0 645.8 623.4 574.2 597.3 549.5 502.9 LFS+ (a), (c) 2330 (2050, 2610) 2280 (2000, 2550) 2090 (1830, 2350) 1980 (1720, 2230) 1790 (1540, 2040) 1580 (1350, 1820) 1550 (1310, 1780) 1430 (1200, 1650) 1320 (1090, 1540) n/a Notes (a) Per 100,000 workers (b) Per 100,000 employees (c) 95% confidence intervals are given in brackets. They represent the range of uncertainty resulting from the estimate being derived from a sample of people, not from the entire population. They are calculated in such a way that the range has a 95% chance of including the true value in the absence of bias i.e. the value that would have been obtained if the entire population had been surveyed. + Three-year average e.g. 2004/05 - 2006/07 (centered on 2005/06). n/a Not available. p Provisional Conclusion The overall reduction in accidents or injuries of all type over last ten years is self explanatory with regards to the effect of these legislations in health and safety at construction site. The accidents are direct result of unsafe activities and conditions both of which can be controlled by health and safety management and the legislation described briefly are helpful in attainment of these objectives. They provide guidelines to employers as well as employees and health and safety official for successful completion of project without health and safety issues. Work Cited 1. Phil Huges MBE, Ed Ferrett, Introduction to health and safety in construction, Third Edition 2. The health and safety‘six pack’ UNISON’s Guide 3. Stuart Summer Hayes, CDM Regulation 2007 procedures manual, Third Edition 4. Legislation and Standard Health and Safety Regulations 5. Successful health and Safety Management by HSE Second edition, published 1997 6. http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/sources.htm Read More