Lawford Kidd's Blog

Health and safety at construction sites continues to be a cause for concern after a national targeted inspection focusing on health risks for construction workers saw enforcement action taken at one in six of the sites that were visited.

During a concentrated two-week period of proactive inspections, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) demanded improvements, and in some cases put an immediate stop to work activities, where they fell short of expected standards.

Inspectors focused on significant health risk issues, such as respiratory risks from dusts containing silica materials, exposure to other hazardous substances such as cement and lead paint, manual handling, noise and vibration.

The winners of the 2014 International Safety Awards have recently been announced by the British Safety Council.

Vision of no more workplace deaths or injuries

The Awards set out to recognise and honour the achievements of winning organisations in keeping their workplaces and workers healthy and safe throughout the year.

Alex Botha, the British Safety Council’s chief executive, explained that the Council’s vision is that no one should be injured, made ill or killed by work activity anywhere in the world, and that the winning organisations had shown a real dedication and commitment to preventing injury and ill health in the workplace.

The European Commission has welcomed the definitive adoption by the EU's Council of Ministers of measures to better protect workers from risks linked to exposure to chemicals at the workplace.

Every day millions of EU workers are potentially exposed to hazardous chemicals in a wide range of employment sectors including manufacturing and service industries, agriculture, health care and education.

The new rules will ensure that the requirements of the five Directives, which protect workers when using chemicals, are brought in line with the recently introduced new rules for the supply of chemicals.