Controlling Exposures to prevent occupational lung disease in the construction industry.

Join us and be part of the solution

Partners

Background

It’s no secret that construction workers are at high risk of contracting lung disease from the work that they do. In 2015, approximately 3,500 will die from occupational cancer caused by past exposure to asbestos, another 500 will die from exposure to silica dust and in addition, 5,500 new cases of occupational cancer will be reported. Furthermore, today alone, an unknown but significant number will breathe in the hazardous substances that will one day debilitate or kill them.

What is less well known is that there’s a solution: most of these industrial diseases can be prevented – by recognising the real hazards, evaluating the risks of being exposed to them, and then effectively controlling those exposures (otherwise known as good occupational hygiene practice).

BOHS is now leading on an initiative which aims to reduce the incidence of occupational lung disease in the construction sector.

Common hazards include:

• diesel exhaust fumes• silica dust• wood and other dusts• asbestos• welding fumes• legionella and other biological agents• solvents

• isocyanates, epoxy and other resin vapours and mists

All of the above substances are known to cause lung diseases which can be serious, debilitating, irreversible, life-limiting and in some cases fatal. The diseases caused by the above hazards include lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis (such as asbestosis and silicosis), asthma, pulmonary oedema, pneumonia, and chronic bronchitis and emphysema (COPD).

Key Deliverables

Breathe Freely is about providing the information, resources and signposting to the advice and expertise to help employers, as follows:

To ensure managers know what “good” looks like and what standards need to be met, you can sign up to our Health in Industry (HI) Standard. Developed specifically for the construction industry, this sets out good practice for managing health risks.

To help spread best practice we have developed a series of data sheets. We have 20 fact sheets each highlighting the main hazards, highest risks and preferred control options for all the key construction trades. We’ve put occupational hygiene into a construction site context so it’s clear where and how an occupational hygienist can help. And we have real on-site case studies showing actual situations and solutions.

For practical help, there will be a toolkit for managers, which covers common risks, an audit checklist, performance indicators and a toolbox talk. (launching November 2015)

For anyone who still needs convincing, we have evidence that good occupational hygiene is good for business and the right thing to do: our Good Business Case sets it all out clearly.

To bring it all together is our web-based information hub, www.breathefreely.org.uk, a centre of excellence on exposure control. All the campaign materials will be available on this website, and new ones will keep being added. Links take you to more detailed guidance and regulations and other sources of relevant information.

All of this information is available on the website www.breathefreely.org.uk.

How can you get involved?

1. Adopt the HI Standard

Adopting this standard will help you introduce, manage and improve your worker health protection programmes, ensuring that the health risks are properly recognised, evaluated and controlled.

Adopt the 6-point framework set out in this standard within your organisation;

Share this with your colleagues, managers and workers by printing and displaying the standard in a prominent place – add your organisation name and sign it first! Tell them about this in staff meetings/briefings;

Tell others you are adopting the standard (contractors, sub-contractors, supply chain) and encourage them to sign up;

Tell us about work you are doing in adopting the standard which we can create case studies from and share with others – email sharon.brunt@bohs.org.

2. Become an official campaign supporter If you would forward a statement of support and your company logo to

sharon.brunt@bohs.or g and we will add these to the growing list of supporters at http://www.breathefreely.org.uk/partners---supporters.html

We would then also appreciate your support in spreading the word about this campaign, eg. by adding a link to the website, sharing messages on twitter and Linkedin, sharing via newsletters and so on.

3. Keep up-to-date and sign up to receive the newsletter via www.breathefreely.org.uk

4. Come to an event and bring your colleagues:

We are holding free events on Breathe Freely where you can find out more about how you can better protect the health of your workers. Confirmed dates confirmed are:

Haydock, 9th September 2015Time: 8.30am – 11am. Breakfast is provided.Location: Holiday Inn, Haydock http://www.hihaydockm6j23hotel.co.uk/

Fife, Scotland, 15th September 2015Time: 8.30am – 11am. Breakfast is provided.Location: MacDonald Inchyra Grange Hotel http://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/our-

hotels/macdonald-inchyra-hotel-spa/

London, 23rd September 2015Location: Mace, 155 Moorgate, London EC2M 6XBTime: 4.30pm – 7pm

Booking is essential and can be done via www.breathefreely.org.uk – bookings open on Friday 26th June.

5. Request a ‘Breathe Freely’ speakerIf you are planning or are involved in an event where you think a Breathe Freely speaker would be welcomed, eg. a company event or a local IOSH or Safety Group event, for example – we will do our best to provide someone to come and speak - email sharon.brunt@bohs.org with your request

6. Help us to develop more case studiesWe are keen to build on our bank of case studies to share the good practice we know is out there. If you have any ideas or suggestions of an initiative or project you think would make a good case study, let us know about it! Please email sharon.brunt@bohs.org.