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CONIAC - CONIAN update

With membership made up from HSE, employers, employees and key industry stakeholders, CONIAC (the Construction Industry Advisory Committee) advises HSE on the protection of people from hazards to health and safety within the construction industry.

CONIAN (the Construction Industry Advisory Network), the industry stakeholder network associated with CONIAC, will be holding its latest update event for the construction industry next month:

Construction Industry Advisory Network (CONIAN) event
20 March, 3Ms facility, Bracknell, Berkshire


Following postponement in November, the event has been revised and rescheduled.The event will cover the:

  • latest updates from CONIAC, including outputs from the CONIAC working groups
  • reconstitution of CONIAC, and alignment of its work with HSE's Protecting People and Places Strategy
  • future work and the focus on health, with updates on priority health topics for the industry

Book now as numbers will be strictly limited.

WWT events

The CONIAC website also includes the regional groups that make up the Working Well Together Initiative (WWT) and its health and safety events. These include:


National Apprenticeship Week

National Apprenticeship Week 2024 earlier this month (5-11 February) was a timely reminder to make sure these workers are receiving the training and supervision they need.

Apprentices could be facing unfamiliar risks and are more likely to be new to the workplace. Workers are as likely to have an accident in the first 6 months at a workplace as they are during the whole of the rest of their working life.

Our website has guidance and information on health and safety for apprentices.

We've also got a wide range of guidance on our young people at work website, including:


Noise at work make sure you protect workers hearing

Research on noise-induced hearing loss shows around a fifth of workers could be exposed to high noise levels while doing their job.

The issue of noise at work is the subject of a scientific report recently discussed by specialists in the field. A Workplace Health Expert Committee report says about 20% of the working population in Great Britain could be exposed to high noise levels (more than 85 dBA).

While new cases of occupational deafness have dropped over the past decade, HSE is urging workplaces to consider the shout test to manage noise at work and ways to give workers ears a break.

Find out more by reading our:


Health and safety events

There are a range of upcoming virtual and in-person events and training courses organised by, or which involve HSE, including:

HSE webinar: Achieving safety culture excellence for the construction industry
14 March, 2:30pm

Culture can be best understood as "the way we do things around here". Poor safety culture has contributed to many major incidents and personal injuries.

HSE will present a free, hour-long, knowledge-sharing webinar on this key topic. You will hear from experts about how to successfully and sustainably improve safety culture, the resources available and how the HSE Safety Climate Tool could help your organisation.

The latest benchmarking data and case studies for the construction industry will be shared by our speaker panel made up of industry and HSE experts, followed by a live Q&A at the end.

Find out more about HSEs training and events.


Recent HSE enforcement activity

Asbestos

Links for further guidance and information: Asbestos

Electricity

Links for further guidance and information: Electricity overhead power lines

Groundworks

Links for further guidance and information: Excavators

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