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June 27, 2016

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Safety Talks: Health and safety on an equal footing

HSE’s 2010 report, The burden of occupational cancer in Great Britain, had been the first hard statistical evidence of the link between cancer deaths and working in the construction industry, health and safety strategy lead at CITB,  Kevin Fear, told delegates in the Taking the lead in construction session at last week’s Safety & Health Expo. It had revealed that there were 50 times more deaths through occupational cancers in the industry than through accidents.

“Because safety has improved, that statistic is now more like a hundred to one,” he said. “So what is the construction industry going to do about this? How can we raise the profile of health? We’re not currently looking for solutions, because the solutions are already there.”

The Health in Construction Leadership Group had held its first summit in January, said its chair, group health and safety director at Land Securities, Clive Johnson. “We invited 150 CEOs and they all turned up. We got real commitment from these top CEOs, and the summit was a massive success.”

An equally successful summit had been held in April, he said. “One of the things that we didn’t want to do was to go and dictate how to do health, but the feedback suggested that that’s what people came for. The momentum and energy has been fantastic, with a real commitment from industry leaders about giving health the same importance as safety.”

“From a union aspect we strongly support this initiative,” said Unite’s health and safety advisor, Susan Murray, although she stressed that it was important not to lose the focus on safety either. “The biggest health issues our members tell me about are asbestos and poor site facilities.”

Collaboration was vital, she said, as was a workplace culture that allowed people to raise concerns without fear of censure or ridicule. “It’s essential that health and safety issues are raised before things go wrong and people get ill. That’s what Unite is about.”

The new sentencing guidelines had a focus on whether problems had been foreseeable, she said, which meant it was vital to listen to what employees were saying. “Because it might come back to bite you.”

“We mustn’t take our eye off the safety ball,” said Clive Johnson. “But with the latency of the health aspect, people think that it will never happen to them. It does.”

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

stress

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