Jim Slater
Construction Design & Risk Management
Construction Health & Safety
In general terms, health & safety means identifying hazards and controlling risks which means planning, organising, controlling, monitoring and reviewing health & safety throughout the life of a project. Health & safety is the responsibility of everybody involved in construction work including clients, designers, contractors and individual workers. The HSE created the numerous regulations to ensure enforcement of duties and safety responsibilities. The goal is to ensure the safety and health of everyone; and to make sure that everyone stays safe and healthy.
CDM Site Audits
They allow you to check that your workplace and work activities are healthy and safe. Workplace inspections help prevent incidents, injuries and illnesses. An inspection helps you identify hazards or processes that are not working efficiently and decide what measures to take before they lead to an accident or incident.
Risk Assessments & Method Statements
RAMS are an important health & safety document that is completed to identify the steps to be undertaken to carry out a specific activity or task in a safe manner. RAMS can be utilised in conjunction with the risk assessment process.
There are five steps to risk assessment:
Identify the hazards
Decide who might be harmed and how
Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
Record your significant findings
Review your assessment and update if necessary
A method statement is an addition to the risk assessment to help planning and ensure there are enough resources to carry out the task safely. The method statement describes the process, steps and resources required to carry out a task safely without risks to health.
Pre-construction Phase
The pre-construction information (PCI) provides information for those designing, bidding for or planning construction work and for the development of the construction phase plan. Dependant on the role under CDM Regulations there are specific responsibilities that require actions to be undertaken.
A pre-construction document should include:
Project description and programme details
Client's considerations and management requirements
Environmental restrictions and existing onsite risks
Significant design and construction hazards
The CDM health & safety file
The greater the risk the greater the weight that must be given to eliminating or reducing it.