CBH to launch skills card scheme

Constructing Better Health (CBH) is set to launch its own equivalent of the CSCS skills card early in August.

The CBH card will give details of health checks on operatives that clear them to do certain types of work. It will allow employers to know, for example, the extent to which they are clear for exposure to working with vibrating tools, skin irritants, noise, dust, or heavy lifting.

The original intention was for the health check information to be included with skills accreditation on an upgraded CSCS Smartcard.

However, CBH chief executive Michelle Aldous said it had been decided to press ahead with a separate health card as an interim measure pending the resolution of an ongoing dispute over who is to provide and operate the projected Smartcard. There remains little sign of this dispute being resolved. A July deadline is said to have been extended to September.

CBH has also launched its own website. It reports an encouraging response to a pilot scheme of checks on contractors working for Sainsburys.