Asbestos safety – what you need to know

We spoke to recent Webinar Wednesday presenter Ken Hannah MCABE C.Build E about why CABE members must pay attention when it comes to asbestos safety.

While asbestos-containing construction materials have been outlawed since the year 2000, the historic legacy of asbestos’s prolific use remains a health risk to those working in the built environment.

To guide CABE members through this potentially life-limiting danger, CABE’s Webinar Wednesday series recently featured a presentation from Ken Hannah. Ken has a remarkably comprehensive range of experiences and competencitrades when it comes health and safety in the built environment: as well as a Batchelor’s degree in construction management, he has a Master’s from Cambridge University in interdisciplinary design in the built environment, and a Master’s in occupational safety and health and environmental management. He is also a chartered member of CABE, CIOB and IOSH, a certified member of the Association for Project Safety (CMaPS), and a member of the Institution of Fire Engineering.

“After I did my Master’s degree at Cambridge, I became a CDM principal designer, then known as a CDM coordinator, which is a position that is designed to look at the health and safety compliance of a design under construction. I manage design teams and construction teams in the built environment, and have been doing so for 11 years as a project director with Potter Raper Limited, which is a multi-disciplinary chartered surveying firm,” Ken said.

“It occurred to me that, while some people who investigate buildings belong to the more traditional design bodies that do have codes of practice to assist them when they are trying to decide whether or not an activity is dangerous in a specific building, there are members of a number of other bodies and organisations who carry out intrusive surveys in buildings who are not are not considered as being at risk and who are not protected in the normal process.

“So I decided to write an asbestos awareness course – the kind that building surveyors and architects would undergo – and offered it to CABE as a means of it being a non-core activity but an important element of the core activity of inspecting buildings.”

Biggest killer

The need for such a course is clear. While asbestos use has been curtailed and asbestos risk awareness has increased, the dangers remain.

“There is a whole series of different diseases that you can get from exposure to asbestos. What we colloquially refer to as ‘asbestosis’ is the biggest occupational killer in the UK with 5000 deaths here each a year. Mesothelioma accounts for roughly 2500 deaths a year and then lung cancer that can be attributed to some form of asbestos exposure account for another 2500 deaths a year,” Ken said.

“Awareness and testing have improved those numbers significantly, though. It is a legal requirement for employers to give their workers asbestos awareness training and this applies to surveyors, architects, engineers – although not everybody is aware of that.”

The fact that awareness – particularly in areas regarding regulations and professional responsibilities – can still be found wanting is one of the driving factors behind Ken’s webinar.

“There is a regulation called the Control of Asbestos Regulations, otherwise known as ‘CAR 2012’. Many people who are not used to working with health and safety regulations will be unaware that, as far as health and safety in the workplace is concerned, employers and managers, and those who are engaged in the activity itself, have a duty of care to themselves and to others,” Ken explained.

“This is a legally binding duty of care although many people don’t understand that regulations are in fact law. So contraventions of these regulations can result in a criminal offence.”

Know your responsibilities

In addition to explaining the full details of these regulatory requirements, the webinar also covers practical advice, including:

• explaining what asbestos is
• where it can be found in a typical building, both domestic and non-domestic
• how to manage asbestos if it is found
• what reporting requirements come into play if asbestos is found
• understanding exposure limits
• the need for anybody who has been exposed to asbestos to be given medical surveillance by their employers
• what people carrying out the surveys and inspections must do and must not do as required by the regulations
• the implications of people’s actions or inactions in terms of following regulations – “many people don’t even know the control of asbestos regulations even apply to them” Ken said.

That final point is crucial, as is the fact that – when it comes to occupational health and safety – ignorance is rarely an acceptable source of mitigation.

“It’s not just asbestos: there are common misconceptions with all health and safety legislation. For example, many people don’t realise that in these cases, the courts actually tend to presume people guilty until they prove themselves innocent, rather than the more expected other way round. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, so people should find out what their legal and moral duties are when carrying out their work,” Ken said.

“When courts are awarding damages for accidents or illness, they look to see how much of a percentage the person may have contributed to their own negligence. If somebody is partly responsible for releasing asbestos fibres – for example, through carrying out a survey without having a competent asbestos survey carried out prior to their inspection – then they could be liable themselves. So it is important to highlight not only the health dangers but also the legal and financial risks that some CABE members may encounter.”

To watch Ken’s Asbestos Awareness webinar in full, visit https://cbuilde.com/page/Asbestos_Awareness_Webinar

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