1. Construction Health and Safety Management
By Dr Simon Smith – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike License

2. Part 2: Introduction to construction site safety
Construction Health & Safety Management
Simon Smith (University of Edinburgh)
& Philip Matyear (Balfour Beatty)
Part 2: Introduction to construction site safety

3. This set of slides introduces Site Safety Management
It allows you to appreciate real examples of what could happen on a project
And the difficulties of protecting against them
Some issues are revisited later in the module

4. Management of construction site safety is all about avoiding poorly managed activities such as this...

5. ...to allow them to protect workers like this

6. The main causes were:
Falling through fragile roofs and rooflights.
Falling from ladders, scaffolds and other work places.
Being struck by excavators, lift trucks or dumpers.
Overturning vehicles.
Being crushed by collapsing structures.

7. Discuss the history of safety:
Engineering – guards, mechanical devices reduced injuries.
Procedures/Systems – this includes training, policy, SOPs, SMS
Behaviours – IIF
Each part reduces the injuries, improves H&S, all are still there.
You may ask Where do you think we are??

8. uninsured / indirect costs emergency arrangements
the hidden costs of accidents
insured / direct costs
injury
ill-health
damage £1
£8 -£38
uninsured / indirect costs
emergency arrangements
process interruption
investigation time
uninsured damage
loss of expertise
legal costs
overtime
fines
We need to be aware that, under the economic heading of our human, economic, legal pyramid, a really significant proportion of our costs resulting from accidents and incidents are hidden. The slide indicates what these hidden costs consist of. The source is, “The costs of accidents at work” from the HSE.
Hidden costs can vary from as low as £8 for every £1 of direct costs right the way up to £38 of hidden, often uninsured, costs for every £1 of direct cost, according to industry and circumstances.
We are beginning to put the costs of accidents on the Corporate Dashboard, using £30 per hour for labour (i.e. staff time).
What has the Wisbech asbestos incident cost? £500,000 for refurbishment and now all the costs of re-surveying all manned and 5% unmanned sites for asbestos, plus costs of control, plus further survey of all sites depending on new legislation. Costs of investigation amount to some 2 man years. Prosecution costs and resulting fines and loss of reputation, legal costs, disturbance costs when 65% of the people were moved out, etc., etc..
A compelling reason to take accident and incident investigation seriously - as if the human and legal reasons were not enough!

9. This and the next few slides are real construction sites – some good some bad.
Good well maintained site

10. A good site

12. Protecting workers from temporary hazards – service holes in this case

13. A poor site – too many trip hazards

14. Pedestrian access maybe but too little edge protection of the excavation
14.

15. On first glace this site seems ok – but there are issues. What are they?
(Trip hazards on scaffolding
Need to clamber across column heads
Gaps/holes in falsework)

16. Same site but worker has deliberately stepped outside scaffold – human behaviour is the most difficult aspect of safety to mange)

17. The Injury Pyramid Major First-Aid Near Miss
Fatal
Major
HSE Statistics – deal with these only C a u s e
Recordable / Lost Time
First-Aid
Near Miss
Focus below this line
Unsafe Actions - At-Risk Behaviour and
Unsafe Conditions
The Injury Pyramid shows the general correlation between unsafe actions and fatalities – for every fatality there will be many more unsafe actions.
Additionally, site management can only effectively deal with the bottom two layers – we cannot ignore those and expect the upper levels to reduce
UNSAFE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS & ACTIONS
From the perspective of cause, the difference between a near-miss and a fatality might be as little as 1 second, or 1 mm.

18. The Injury Pyramid Death Lost Work Day Recordable First-Aid Near Miss
Unsafe Actions - At-Risk Behaviour and
Unsafe Conditions
If we improve management decisions and actions (i.e. reduce wrong ones) then the number of fatalities will drop
WRONG MANAGEMENT DECISIONS & ACTIONS

19. Remainder of slides show construction situations
This one shows difficult access

20. Poor hard standing areas

21. Insufficient equipment

22. This sequence of slides shows the difficulties of off-loading with wrong equipment

23. Materials provides on pallets – designed to be lifted from underneath

25. They are not designed to be lifted from above using the bands

26. Fallen Materials
Lifting with a crane resulted in materials falling on to the scaffold below
(no fatalities)

27. An appropriate alternative – actually there on this site, just not used.

28. This slide shows the danger of improperly maintained equipment
This slide shows the danger of improperly maintained equipment. This tower crane had a poorly maintained saddle

29. The block became loose and dropped to the slab below

30. Only from underneath can the full extent be seen

31. This slide shows inappropriate protection of lift shafts.
Unfortunately one person was killed when they tried to fix the electrical installation and fell down the shaft

32. The immediate reaction was to protect the openings to the shafts...

33. Protection Measures – Lift Shafts
... Though a better solution is shown here

34. Poor excavation access

35. Same situation from below