Donaghy - Government agrees 'one death is too many'
Thursday, 01 April 2010
Yesterday’s response by the Government to
Rita Donaghy’s groundbreaking inquiry into the underlying causes of
fatal accidents in construction (‘One death is too many’, July
2009) was positive and promising, but should go further.
Though disappointed at certain omissions, the Institution of
Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is pleased that the
Government has accepted so many of Donaghy’s 28 recommendations and
is effectively “keeping the door open” on positive directors’
duties, aspects of gang master licensing in construction, and more
resources for Health and Safety Executive (HSE) front line
construction inspectors. These are all key issues IOSH has called
for action on and is keen to see progress on.
John Lacey, Chair of the IOSH Construction Group and Vice
President said:
“We welcome the Government’s positive and
promising response, although we’d like it to do more. We
particularly welcome its support for embedding health and safety in
the higher education curricula and its work with others to help
ensure health and safety awareness and risk management are
adequately covered. We believe education can help raise standards
and ultimately save lives. This is why we’ve included it in our
manifesto and are currently supporting the development of health
and safety training materials for undergraduate engineers with the
Inter-Institutional Group.”
John added, “As we all know, occupational
health issues remain a big challenge in construction; so we’re
pleased that the Government appreciates the need to support Dame
Carol Black’s proposals, as well as acknowledging IOSH’s valuable
work to train health and safety practitioners to play a more active
role in helping to manage health issues in workplaces.”
He closed saying, “It’s good that the
Government recognises the needs of vulnerable groups and on
establishing guidance for construction employers who wish to take
young people on work experience. This also chimes with IOSH’s
‘Putting young workers first’ campaign and manifesto themes.”
IOSH has produced the Workplace Hazard Awareness Course, a free
resource for preparing year 10 pupils for the world of work. The
IOSH manifesto has called for work placement officers to be trained
to national standards, and also advocate the embedding of health
and safety in vocational qualifications and apprenticeships. It
also challenges others to get the health and safety messages across
to people with literacy and language problems.