Scottish Businesses, particularly those in the Highlands, have urged to join IOSH’s ‘No Time To Lose’ campaign, which was launched to tackle work-related cancer.

Across the UK, work-related cancer results in the death of 8,000 each year with 14,000 new cases diagnosed over the same period.

Worldwide, occupational cancer kills in excess of 666,000 people annually.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) will be promoting the campaign later this month at a specialist lecture in Inverness.
Commenting, Iain Henderson, who is the Chair of IOSH’s Highlands and Islands Branch, stated:

"It is crucial that employers and employees are made more aware of common carcinogens, the main routes of exposure and how to effectively protect themselves.

"Occupational cancer can result in a major cost to businesses and families, both financially and emotionally....

"People in the Highlands and Islands and other parts of the UK should be able to return home to their families after work in the same state of health as when they left in the morning, without in the interim being exposed to the cause of a potentially life-shortening disease.

"Unfortunately there are many people who are being exposed on a daily basis to carcinogens. Many of them don't even know about the danger that this presents.

"That is why it now is the time to take action and we are calling on businesses in our area to join our campaign to cut the rates of people dying from cancer they contracted while at work. There really is 'No Time to Lose'."

Also commenting, Professor John Cherrie, lead researcher from the Edinburgh-based Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM), stated:

“Cancer from work-related causes kills almost 4,000 people in the construction industry in Britain each year.

"All of these deaths could have been prevented if we had taken the appropriate steps to protect people. We now need to ensure that we are doing the right things to ensure that future generations of construction workers will not suffer from the same problems."

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