Health and Safety Essay (Essay Sample)

Tutor:
Title: Health and Safety
Course:
Date
The health and safety at work acts help to ensure that employers have a general duty of protecting the health and safety of their employees. These health and safety regulations ensure that organisations meet the health, safety as well as welfare needs of the workforce including the disabled. Facilities such as, workstations, stairs, showers, doors, passageways and washbasins should be easily accessible for the disabled people. Engineers and managers controlling construction work have health and safety responsibilities (HSE, 2006).
The construction Act of 1994 requires that the principal contractor secure health and safety of employees on site. It is important to gather adequate information regarding health and safety of the project and the proposed site before work starts. Information available at tendering need to be used in order to ensure that time and resources are allocated so as to deal with any problems that can occur during the construction period. information can be collected from; the client, the design team, equipment and material suppliers, contract documents, specialists contractors and consultants, HSE guidance and British standards (HSE, 2006).
The design and management act 1994, requires that the client to hire a planning supervisor responsible for coordinating the health and safety aspects of the construction work and initial plan. To achieve this, designers should comply with their duties under the regulations, especially in prevention and control of risks, notification of the project to HSE and creating a health and safety plan and file according to the requirements of the Act. The officers should assess the history of the site and the neighbourhood. The purpose of this task is to identify any strange features which might affect the project, or how the project will affect the surroundings. You should check areas such as, strange ground conditions, nearby schools, railways, footpaths, and roads, overhead power lines and underground services, asbestos and other contaminants (HSE, 2006).
In case CDM applies, this information ought to be included in the pre-construction-stage health and safety plan. Its contents should be considered before tenders are submitted. Also, collecting information is still essential in case CDM does not apply. The health and safety document should be kept by the client after completion of the project. It entails information regarding the structure relevant to the health and safety of employees conducting repairs, maintenance and renovation on the structure. In 2002, a modified approved code of practice was issued.
The supply of machinery safety regulation 1992, controls compliance with the significant safety requirements of the machinery. European standards organization has created harmonized standards in order to ensure manufacturers’ products quality meet requirements of the regulations. Most of the construction machinery safety standards are under the CEN.TC151 and its working teams. Working teams cover the entire construction machinery such as, earthmoving machinery, rigs, demolition machinery, pilling and drilling rigs, roadmaking machinery, tunnelling machinery and machinery used to produce materials like cement, glass and bricks (Lamont, nd).
The construction head protection Act 1989 deals exclusively with the protection of head injuries. Work in compressed Air regulations 1996 requires that a compressed air contractor should be responsible for safety management (Lamont, nd).The regulation ensures provision of twin compartment manlock, prohibits use of vertical locks for stage compression, and stipulates the role of contract Medical adviser. Oxygen should be available for treatment of decompression illness according to the directions of the contract medical adviser. The regulation also provides extensive requirements for fire and emergency, prohibitions on smoking within the site, and the introduction of health and exposure record for employees exposed (Lamont, nd). In Sept...