A healthy worker, in a healthy workplace, making healthy lifestyle choices

Occupational Health in Design The Power to Make a Difference

Eric Ball Senior Occupational Hygienist

01296 310450 | [email protected]

How does this work on Major Construction Projects? Four key elements to occupational health risk management: 1.Focussing on the worker, to reduce the negative impact of health on work; 2.Focussing on the workplace to ensure that work is designed in order to reduce the impact of work on health; 3.Focussing on wellbeing, to encourage employee general health and wellbeing and, 4.Focussing on the wider community to improve the health of local populations 01296 310450 | [email protected]

How does this work

• A holistic occupational health programme must have prevention at its core.

• A hygiene led service anticipates and recognises health hazards before they arrive on site.

• Integration with design aids this enables full application of the hierarchy of control, prior to the evaluation, control and prevention of the residual risks 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Why should we integrate health into design? •

Moral

o Worker health

•

Contractual

o Works Information •

Legal

o The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 o Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015

o Specific Regulations (ALARP) •

Economic

o Cost effective and healthy e.g. the Elliot Method 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Why else should we integrate health into design •

Approx. 46% of construction industry accidents could have been prevented by design (HSE research report 218 & 156)

•

Construction industry saw 30 fatalities in 16/17, suggesting that 14 accidents could have been prevented by design

•

If 47% of deaths caused by occupational ill health could have been prevented through design intervention this equates to around 1,800 preventable ill health deaths

•

The methods of work and materials used to realise designs have a massive influence over the future health of construction worker

01296 310450 | [email protected]

When should we be thinking about this?

• Concept Design

• Detailed Design • Construction and handover • When and who else has influence? 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Concept Design

• It is easy to detach from the implications later on

• Site layout may determine construction techniques

• First opportunity to identify ground conditions that may result in ill health

• Significant impact on forgotten health issues – such as fatigue and mental wellbeing 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Concept Design

• Soils behind sheet piling stabilised with Polyurethane foam

• Planned Oxygen/Propane cutting of the sheet piling • Exposure of foam to naked flames releases Hydrogen Cyanide

• Remaining soils stabilised with a sandwich layer of water based acrylic foam against the piling

• Safer alternative found to have exactly the same stabilisation properties as polyurethane foam 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Concept Design

• Early designs did not require roof access, such that detailed design made not account for it

• Late in the planning the scope changed for lighting • Attempts made to design access from pool side • Ultimately temporary access had to be introduced, leading to manual handling issues during lighting maintenance.

01296 310450 | [email protected]

Concept Design

• Water Treatment Works project for enlargement of a number of works.

• Consideration was being given to bulk chemical delivery for treatment of water supply

• Previous sites had issue with the powdered state of chemical so liquid would be preferred

• Option not considered viable in some aspects due to insufficient space for infrastructure required. 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Detailed Design

• Often the main point of any serious consideration of OH

• Techniques and methodologies decided upon • Use of specific materials • Opportunity to influence temporary works – which is a major influencer on OH as the demolition requirement becomes more

pertinent 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Detailed Design

• Decisions not finalised for the numbers of bio-mass reactors to be installed. Reactors required various ducts to pass through the concrete floor.

• In the pouring of the first floor, large removable sections were designed in to allow for variations.

• Avoided the noise, HAV and respirable silica exposures that would be anticipated from cutting

holes to fit the ducting once the design had been finalised.

01296 310450 | [email protected]

Detailed Design

• All these projects used similar hazardous chemicals for surface preparation

• In each circumstance, this was specified by design

• Challenging the suppliers enabled the use of considerably safer alternatives. 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Other influencers on the design

• Who else has valuable input? • Client • Construction Teams • Procurement Teams • Project Risk Managers • Environment Teams • Safety Teams 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Constructability

• Often the typical point of serious consideration of OH

• Techniques and methodologies decided upon

• Use of specific materials • Consideration of operational and maintenance activities 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Constructability

• Early designs had left specific techniques for waterproofing to be left open to contractors choice

• Allowed for trialling of different techniques (sprayed chemical or mechanically fixed lining)

• Input from OH team was able to direct design team to remove one option from the multiple compounds being considered.

• Other sites without the input from OH lead to temporary site shut down 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Tools for Designers

• Comparative Risk Assessment

• Use to provide a semi quantitative analysis during option control workshops 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Tools for Designers

• BIM • Computer modelling can be used to incorporate known health and safety hazards

• Hazard Identification workshops used to identify key ergonomic hazards with water dosing units

• These were inputted to the BIM system, ensuring that designers knew about the positioning, access, and routes required to and from chemical storage

01296 310450 | [email protected]

Tools for Designers

• RAG Lists • Don’t simply prevent options

but provide alternatives and controls 01296 310450 | [email protected]

Thank you for listening! Do you have any questions? • RAG Lists

01296 01296310450 310450 | | [email protected] [email protected]