Safety management

Construction companies use a wide range of safety practices as part of their safety management programmes, with an increasing emphasis on creating a safety culture throughout the organisation.

Some of the practices that can be employed on projects to manage safety include:

• Involving workers in the safety process, through toolbox talks, safety briefings, site inductions, offering safety incentives, and so on.
• Analysis of potential site safety hazards during the preconstruction phase.
• Adopting the principles of prevention: avoid risks where possible; evaluate those risks that cannot be avoided; put in place measures that control them at source.
• Encouraging an open-door policy for workers to report accidents, injuries, hazards and near misses.
• Conducting thorough near miss and incident investigations to ensure effective action is taken.
• Employing specific personnel assigned to manage safety.
• Designating health and safety duties to on-site staff, such as a first aider.
• Conducting regular project safety audits.
• Developing a site-specific health and safety plan.
• Site specific training programmes for workers and subcontractors.
• Proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Safety management is a very broad subject. Some of the articles on Designing Buildings Wiki that provide an introduction to the practices, principles and regulations involved include:

• CDM.
• Construction health risks.
• Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH).
• Emergency plan.
• Environmental health.
• Health and safety.
• Health and safety at Work etc act 1974.
• Health and safety consultant.
• Health and Safety Executive.
• Health and safety file.
• Health and safety inspector.
• Health and safety policy.
• Incident reporting system.
• Injuries on construction sites.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
• Manual handling assessment chart.
• Method statement.
• Near miss.
• Personal protective equipment.
• Pre-construction information.
• Principal contractor.
• Principal designer.
• Project risk.
• Reporting accidents and injuries on construction sites.
• Risk assessment.
• Risk management.
• Risk of rats in construction.
• Safety audit.
• Safety briefing.
• Site induction.
• Site inspection.
• Toolbox talk.
• Work at height regulations.
• Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

For a full list, see Health and Safety / CDM.