Media reports on construction site health and safety performance are usually bad news. Falls from height, poor manual handling, fatalities and serious injuries do not make happy reading. So it’s encouraging to provide some good news for once: accidents and injuries in the electrical sector are down again (page 7).
While construction has been branded as the most dangerous industry in Britain by the National Audit Office, figures compiled by the JIB highlight that the electrical contracting industry’s accident record is improving. The statistics reveal that the sector is on track to achieve the ECA’s Zero Accident Potential (ZAP) targets of a 30% reduction on all reportable accidents and 40% fewer major injuries by the end of 2005.

Our report into contractors’ strategies on enforcing use of personal protection equipment on site (page 35) shows just how far the m&e sector has come in recent years. But as Andrew Wolstenholme, construction director at BAA Terminal 5 pointed out at the ECA conference in Portugal (pages 15-17), the industry needs to be of a mindset where any injuries on site are totally unacceptable.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor