Health scheme set to go nationwide

Good trial results mean Constructing Better Health scheme will be rolled out nationally.

Constructing Better Health (CBH), the pilot scheme to improve occupational health in the construction industry, is to become a national scheme covering the sector from the largest to smallest contractors.

The news comes only three months after the end of the pilot scheme, which has produced some startling results. Speaking exclusively to CJ, CBH chairman Trevor Walker said it would “move to become an organisation which would take the industry solution on and develop it”.

According to Walker, CBH would be responsible for developing national standards for occupational health in construction, developing guidance and advice for employers and employees, and providing a consistent approach to health testing in the industry.

It would maintain a database of individuals who had been tested, issue a smartcard to say they had received an occupational health check, and warn when their next check is due. Data from the health check would remain confidential, with the smartcard highlighting only safety-critical information.

“The smartcard would be a way of telling employers that this person could do the job from a health point of view, and would mean that employees would not need a health check every time they worked on a different site.

“I don’t currently envisage that CBH will deliver the checks, but it may, in its role as a standards monitoring body, ensure people are testing to the correct standards and that it is being done to a high standard and with consistency,” said Walker. “There are people who are scarily incompetent, but who are selling their services to construction companies.”

In order to ensure appropriate standards are set, understand database requirements and implications, and deal with issues around the smartcard, CBH is working with the DTI, HSE, CSCS and B&CE on a scoping study carried out by Health & Safety Labs.

“This will give us detail for the answers we need. We aim to finish this by the end of this year, to spend the first six months of 2007 turning this into reality, and for the scheme to start in mid-2007.”

Walker said employers had a duty to cover some health surveillance issues under current legislation, and that CBH would be investigating further funding.

[Contract Journal, 25 October 2006, p 4]