Health at Design Standards
Park Launches New Health at Design Standards to Eliminate Health Risks from the Outset of Construction Projects
In an effort to ensure that any risks to health are addressed at the design stage of construction projects, Park Health & Safety has developed a series of rigorous best practice standards for the industry.
Calling upon the expertise of our occupational hygienists, design teams will be able to apply Park’s standards at the very outset of the project lifecycle to eliminate and mitigate workplace risks to health, as stipulated by the 2015 Construction (Design and Management) Regulations.
Evidence has shown that approximately 47% of construction industry accidents could have been prevented if addressed at the design stage (HSE RR 148, 2003). If 47% of deaths caused by occupational ill health can be avoided through the application of design, this will equate to around 2,500 preventable ill health deaths per year, excluding deaths from asbestos-related disease.
Workers in the construction industry are at significant risk of premature death and lifelong disability and suffer from nearly half of all occupational cancers in Great Britain. They are prone to hand arm vibration syndrome, noise induced hearing loss, back pain, asthma, COPD and fibrosis of the lungs, all resulting in years of misery, early exit from the industry and complications from links to other chronic ill health conditions.
The methods of work and the materials used to realise designs have a huge influence over the future health of construction workers. However, all too often, health hazards identified at design stage are judged to be a construction phase challenge and any mitigation is focused on what the contractors, rather than the designers, can do, resulting in missed opportunities to reduce this burden.
By referring to the comprehensive standards developed by Park, designers can avoid “passing responsibility” to construction and, instead, can put forward a more holistic and cost-effective solution.
A New Approach: Health at Design
Health at Design can be defined as the deliberate consideration, during the design phase, of a health risk that may arise during construction, use, maintenance and decommissioning of an asset.
For more than ten years, Park has been at the forefront of supporting design teams and projects in applying occupational hygiene and construction health risk management knowledge.
With this considerable experience, Park is able to use its reference guide for best practice design for health to contribute to health at design interventions. The beauty of the approach is in its simplicity. Many projects and workplaces are already familiar with defining essential or minimum health and safety standards and so this approach replicates this thinking for design. As with health and safety standards, expectations and reasonable practicability do change and evolve over time so it is likely these design standards will be dynamic and will be updated regularly.
During the design phase of projects there is a great deal of uncertainty and opportunity that has to be considered: quality, time, fitness for purpose, aesthetics and environmental impact constraints, alongside a now established consideration of safety implications that all affect design choices.
Despite a number of high-profile projects in the UK mandating Health at Design, there remains some confusion and inconsistency as to what should be delivered and a lack of clarity on what the outcomes should be. This could be attributed to the lack of an agreed definition or not having a protocol available to support delivery of health at design initiatives.
Experience has shown that asking design teams to incorporate consideration for health and wellbeing into their decisions in the absence of such definitions and procedures, can be seen as an overburdensome process. At times where cost and time pressures on projects are being severely restricted, anything that causes further delay or requires extra time and effort without a clear cost benefit will subsequently fail and be disregarded.
The Park Health at Design Standards approach saves time and cost by allowing the risk register to be reviewed thoroughly without having to attend all design review meetings, as was previously the case. It facilitates assurance where mitigations meet current best practice and directs specific conversations with risk owners to address any discrepancies between the reference guide, the ‘design standards’ and identified project mitigation. It allows for quantifiable performance measures to be produced and a clear way to capture innovation, best practice and continuous improvement.
Park is currently applying these standards with its customers who are benefitting from a streamlined, clear and effective way to ensure measures can be applied at design and that performance can be monitored and reported.
To ask us about our approach and how it may benefit your project or how we could help you improve health at design please contact us at clare.forshaw@parkhs.co.uk