Risk assessment construction sites

The polarised safe/unsafe of the legislative lexicon has unsurprisingly become embedded in organisational safety management practices and safety management systems. Binary evaluations of safety are therefore also found at the heart of various safety management activities, such as risk assessments and site inspections, and so have considerable influence on the construction of safety in practice. 

Pharmacokinetic studies can yield information about the actual relationships between administered doses and target site doses over a range of doses from this it may be possible to conduct a risk assessment based on the target site doses, and construct a more accurate profile of the dose-response relation. 

The exposure characteristics and assumptions refer partly to site conditions e.g. soil type, soil chemistry, exposed soil fraction) and partly to the site use and users e.g- construction style of buildings, receptor characteristics, activity patterns and time spent on site). Many of these are assumptions rather than measurements because chronic health risk assessments are concerned with predicting contaminant intakes and their effects up to 70 years into the future. Some of the soil characteristics may also change with time. 

However, this has led to a substitution of PPE for safety itself, a consequence at direct odds with accepted risk assessment philosophy. Whichever hierarchy of risk reduction is utilised, PPE is always near the bottom in terms of a risk reduction strategy, if not actually in last place. The Health and Safety Executive (2003) states that PPE should be the last resort in health and safety management, yet its visibility and prominence within the construction site environment has led to a social construction of safety so tightly interwoven with PPE that the two are rarely separated. Although PPE is certainly an artefact of safety, it is not safety itself, and it is important that this distinction should be explored to ensure it is better understood. 

Risk and risk assessment are one of the fundamental ways safety and unsafety is managed on UK construction sites, and are prescribed by law. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) require that risks associated with any work activity are assessed before work starts. Risk assessments form the basis of many Health and Safety Regulations, and a standardised format and prescribed approach to the process often forms part of the safety management system toolkit in the establishment of safe systems of work. ... 

SELECTION OF EQUIPMENT A detailed assessment will ensure that the appropriate equipment is chosen for a given work environment where certain risk exposures are assumed. As an example, plumbed equipment may be suitable for a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, where large quantities of caustic materials are present. However, a remote construction site may not have access to a limitless supply of flushing fluid, making a self-contained, portable device ideal. Equipment... 

Undertake a risk assessment to assess the safest time of year to construct the work. There may often be a conflict between the safest time to carry out the construction and other issues, such as allowing access to the site for tourism and pleasure during the summer periods or environmental issues such as bird migration periods. The CDM regulations require the designer to balance a number of issues including environmental, cost and safety considerations. 

A new method for concrete shuttering is to be used on a construction site, for which a general risk assessment is to be undertaken using HSE s five steps approach. 

The control of risks is essential to secure and maintain a healthy and safe construction site or workplace which complies with the relevant legal requirements. Hazard identification and risk assessment are covered in Chapter 5 and these together with appropriate risk control measures form the core of HSG 65 implementing and planning section of the management model. Chapter 1 covers this in more detail. 

The method statement should take into account the conclusions of risk assessments made under the Management, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health and the Manual Handling Operations Regulations. It can also help other contractors working on a site to understand the effects work will have on them. It can help the principal contractor to draw up the construction phase safety plan. 

All this information should also be contained in the on-site construction phase safety plan (as required under CDM). A copy of the risk assessment and method statement should be kept on site for reference purposes. An example of a risk assessment for a confined space is given in Appendix 9.4 at the end of this chapter. 

When work is to be done in areas which remain occupied, the risk assessment must cieariy define the perimeter around the construction work area and detaii the methods used to maintain the security of the site and the safety of members of the pubiic passing around, under or over the site. 

The frequency of inspection and testing should be based on a risk assessment which is related to the usage, type and operational environment of the equipment. The harsher the working environment is, the more frequent the period of inspection. Thus tools used on a construction site should be tested much more frequently than a visual display unit which is never moved from a desk. Manufacturers or suppliers may recommend a suitable testing period. Table 14.1 lists the intervals for construction and industrial equipment given by the HSE in its publication Maintaining portabie and transportable electrical equipment (HSG107). 

The fire risk assessment is not a one-off procedure. Construction sites are continually changing as work progresses. The site should be continually monitored to ensure that the existing fire safety arrangements and risk assessment remains realistic. The assessment should be reviewed frequently as fire significant changes take place. 

In a place like an office, risk assessment should be straightforward but where there are serious hazards, such as those on a construction site or when construction work is undertaken in a chemical plant or on an oil rig, it is likely to be more complicated. 

The first of these measures is the most widely used, and its requirements are generally understood by the electrically qualified, except perhaps for the bonding of some extraneous metalwork such as metal framed windows where it is often a matter of risk assessment and judgement see section 7.2. The relation between disconnection times and degree of risk is explained, including the 5 s llOV centre tapped to earth (CTE) system used on construction sites. 

The first step in any assessment of a site affected by ground gas or vapours is to construct a conceptual model. The desk study and site investigation data should be used to develop this. The first part of the gas risk assessment is to use the model to identify any source pathway and receptor linkages from the conceptual model. If there is no linkage then there is no risk. Once the source-pathway-receptor scenarios have been identified the risks associated with each one can be assessed qualitatively (i.e. descriptively). 

Important items that require validation include membrane installations, floor slab construction, underfloor venting and in groimd gas venting and barriers. A specific validahon plan should be prepared for each site, based on the site-specific design and risk assessment. 

Assist in the development of the construction site fire risk assessment... 

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