Health and welfare in the Construction Industry
Jobs in the construction industry have one of the highest injury and accident rates and as a worker, you will be at constant risk unless you adopt a good health and safety attitude. By following the rules and regulations set out to protect you and by taking reasonable care of yourself and others, you will become a safe worker and thus reduce the chance of any injuries or accidents.
The most common risks to a construction worker
What do you think these might be? Think about the construction industry you are working in and the hazards and risks that exist.
The most common health and safety risks a construction worker faces are:
• Accidents
• Ill health.
Accidents
We often hear the saying ‘accidents will happen’, but when working in the construction industry, we should not accept that accidents just happen sometimes. When we think of an accident, we quite often think about it as being no-one’s fault and something that could not have been avoided.
The truth is that most accidents are caused by human error, which means someone has done something they shouldn’t have done or, just as importantly, not done something they should have done.
Accidents often happen when someone is hurrying, not paying
enough attention to what they are doing or they have not received the correct training. If an accident happens, you or the person it happened to may be lucky and will not be injured. More often, an accident will result in an injury which
may be minor (e.g. a cut or a bruise) or possibly major (e.g. loss of a limb).
Accidents can also be fatal. The most common causes of fatal accidents in the construction industry are:
• Falling from scaffolding
• Being hit by falling objects and materials
• Falling through fragile roofs
• Being hit by forklifts or Lorries
• Electrocution.
Ill health
While working in the construction industry, you will be exposed to substances or situations that may be harmful to your health. Some of these health risks may not be noticeable straight away and it may take years for symptoms to be noticed and recognized.
Ill health can result from:
• Exposure to dust (such as asbestos), which can cause breathing problems and cancer
• Exposure to solvents or chemicals, which can cause dermatitis and other skin problems
• lifting heavy or difficult loads, which can cause back injury and pulled muscles
• Exposure to loud noise, which can cause hearing problems and deafness
• using vibrating tools, which can cause vibration white finger and other problems with the hands. Everyone has a responsibility for health and safety in the construction
Industry but accidents and health problems still happen too often. Make sure you do what you can to prevent them.
Staying healthy. As well as keeping an eye out for hazards, you must also make sure that you look after yourself and stay healthy. One of the easiest ways to do this is to wash your hands on a regular basis. By washing your hands you are preventing hazardous substances from entering your body through ingestion (swallowing). You should always wash your hands after going to the toilet and before eating or drinking.
Other precautions that you can take are ensuring that you wear barrier cream, the correct PPE and only drink water that is labeled as drinking water. Remember that some health problems do not show symptoms straight away and what you do now can affect you much later in life.
Welfare facilities
Welfare facilities are things such as toilets, which must be provided by your employer to ensure a safe and healthy workplace. There are several things that your employer must provide to meet welfare standards and these are:
• Toilets – the number of toilets provided depends upon the number of people who are intended to use them. Males and females can use the same toilets providing there is a lock on the inside of the door. Toilets should be flushable with water or, if this is not possible, with chemicals.
• Washing facilities – employers must provide a basin large enough to allow people to wash their hands, face, and forearms. Washing facilities must have hot and cold running water as well as soap and a means of drying your hands. Showers may be needed if the work is very dirty or if workers
are exposed to corrosive and toxic substances.
• Drinking water – there should be a supply of clean drinking water available, either from a tap connected to the mains or from bottled water. Taps connected to the mains need to be clearly labeled as drinking water and bottled drinking water must be stored in a separate area to prevent contamination.
• Storage or dry room – every building site must have an area where workers can store the clothes that they do not wear on site, such as coats and motorcycle helmets. If this area is to be used as a drying room then adequate heating must also be provided in order to allow clothes to dry.
• Lunch area – every site must have facilities that can be used for taking breaks and lunch well away from the work area. These facilities must provide shelter from the wind and rain and be heated as required. There should be access to tables and chairs, a kettle or urn for boiling water and a means of heating food, such as a microwave. When working in an occupied house, you should make arrangements with the client to use the facilities in their house.
Manual handling
Manual handling means lifting and moving a piece of equipment or material from one place to another without using machinery. Lifting and moving loads by hand are one of the most common causes of injury at work. Most injuries caused by manual handling result from years of lifting items that are too heavy are awkward shapes or sizes, or from using the wrong technique.
However, it is also possible to cause a lifetime of back pain with just one single lift. Poor manual handling can cause injuries such as muscle strain, pulled ligaments and hernias. The most common injury by far is a spinal injury. Spinal injuries are very serious because there is very little that doctors can do to correct them and, in extreme cases, workers have been left paralyzed.
What you can do to avoid injury
The first and most important thing you can do to avoid injury from lifting is to receive proper manual handling training. Kinetic lifting is a way of lifting objects that reduce the chance of injury and is covered in more detail on the next page. Before you lift anything you should ask yourself some simple questions:
• Does the object need to be moved?
• Can I use something to help me lift the object? A mechanical aid such as a forklift or crane or a manual aid such as a wheelbarrow may be more appropriate than a person.
• Can I reduce the weight by breaking down the load? Breaking down a load into smaller and more manageable weights may mean that more journeys are needed, but it will also reduce the risk of injury.
• Do I need help? Asking for help to lift a load is not a sign of weakness and team lifting will greatly reduce the risk of injury.
• How much can I lift safely? The recommended maximum weight a person can lift is 25 kg but this is only an average weight and each person is different. The amount that a person can lift will depend on their physique, age, and experience.
• Where is the object going? Make sure that any obstacles in your path are out of the way before you lift. You also need to make sure there is somewhere to put the object when you get there.
• Am I trained to lift? The quickest way to receive a manual handling injury is to use the wrong lifting technique. Lifting correctly (kinetic lifting) When lifting any load it is important to keep the correct posture and to use the correct technique.
The correct posture before lifting:
• Feet shoulder width apart with one foot slightly in front of the other
• Knees should be bent
• the back must be straight
• arms should be as close to the body as possible
• the grip must be firm using the whole hand and not just the fingertips.
The correct technique when lifting:
• approach the load squarely facing the direction of travel
• adopt the correct posture (as above)
• place hands under the load and pull the load close to your body
• lift the load using your legs and not your back.
When lowering a load you must also adopt the correct posture and technique:
• bend at the knees, not the back
• adjust the load to avoid trapping fingers
• release the load.
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