Fatal refurb: addressing refurbishment’s poor safety record

Figures published by the Health and Safety Executive last month for the construction sector make for sobering reading. During 2008/09 the industry had the third highest rate of fatal accidents, just behind agriculture and the extractive industries. Fifty-three fatalities were recorded, that’s 2.5 for every 100,000 workers.

However, there is some cause for optimism. The rate has dropped by more than a third over the past three years and the figure for 2008/09 is less than half that recorded at the beginning of the millennium. Philip White, head of construction at the HSE, says there has been a continuing downward trend both in fatal and major accidents.

“This is partly down to the recession, but we think it is also in part owing to improving standards and the long-term programme we launched eight years ago to deliver a cultural change in the industry,” he says.

There is one sector that still stands out as a trouble spot and which, given the current economic climate and drive for sustainable development, is set to grow in coming years – and that’s refurbishment.

Many organisations, particularly in the public sector, continue to occupy ageing and unsuitable buildings that might have poor internal planning and are inefficient and expensive to run. Major refurbishment, including stripping the buildings back to the structural frame, is increasingly becoming an attractive option.

“We might be heading out of recession but it is going to be a long time until we are totally clear of it. Clients staying put and modernising their current properties is going to be the way for the next few years,” says Shaun Davis, safety, health, environment and quality director at refurbishment and maintenance specialist Rok.

There are several arguments for going down the refurbishment route – greater organisational efficiency, reduced running and capital cost and environmental considerations. The recent transformation of Hampshire council’s HQ in Winchester saved £35m compared with demolishing it and starting again, and it managed to cut the building’s carbon emissions by almost two-thirds and the embodied energy of the finished building by half.

And it’s not just commercial buildings – a lot of public work will also be in refurbishment. The primary capital programme, for example, which will invest £1.9bn in renewing half of the country’s primary schools, will involve a high proportion of refurbishment and extension.

So what is the refurbishment sector’s record on safety? Earlier this year the secretary of state for work and pensions published a report on the underlying causes of fatal accidents in the construction industry. Phase one of this report gave an in-depth analysis of causes over the past decade, the results of which underpin Rita Donaghy’s report into fatalities in the construction industry, published in June.

One of the things it highlighted was that refurbishment and repair activity constitutes a consistently high proportion of fatal accidents – more than 50% of deaths over the past three years.

According to White it tends to be the smaller end of both the domestic and non-domestic sectors that account for these accidents. But he says: “We need to look at doing more work on that to find out if there are any trends or any particular sectors on the commercial side, not just for fatal accidents but for major accidents as well.”

Sample accidents mentioned are typical of smaller builders – a roofer slipping off a ladder when replacing soffits on a residential property, a self-employed builder falling through an opening in a roof while refurbishing a disused outbuilding and a foreman being struck by an excavator bucket while underpinning a house.

But moves are in place to tackle this end of the sector. Talks are continuing between the HSE and the Building Control Alliance – which represents Local Authority Building Control and the Association of Consultant Approved Inspectors – to explore if building control officers or approved inspectors can provide health and safety advice to smaller builders on sites they visit or flag up if there is an issue to the HSE inspector.

“We need to try different ways alongside our traditional ways of inspecting,” says White. “There is already a lot of work going on at a local level between HSE inspectors and local authority building control and we would like to see that becoming the norm across the country. We are hoping to have some form of protocol agreed at the national level soon”.

According to Davis there is a misconception that a refurbishment constitutes a lick of paint and a new floor covering. “It can be really significant construction work that has got a lot of safety risks.” Peter Robertshaw, director of safety at civil engineer Osborne, says the size of these types of projects is becoming much larger. “It is a totally different skills set compared to new build; it is much more dynamic in that you don’t know what you’re going to uncover until you get there,” says Robertshaw. “With a new build you plan everything out to the nth degree, but with particularly large refurbishments it’s not until you open up the building that you start to come across the anomalies.”

Planning is imperative and finding out about the building’s previous uses can be a good guide to what to expect. Robertshaw cites refurbishing a former battery factory where the entire structure was saturated in mercury and had to be decontaminated before any work could be done.

Asbestos, fire risks and structural alterations are key danger areas. The ability to carry out dynamic risk assessment and evaluate situations as they are unearthed are key. Osborne has a number of systems in place. It still retains temporary works engineers, who are on hand to design the support structures, and access protection systems that can influence the safety, speed and profitability of a project. The firm has also developed a bespoke managing safety construction certificate in conjunction with the Institute of Safety and Health for its site managers, which takes into account the risks of refurbishment projects.

It also has other courses for operatives and subcontractors but, says Robertshaw, they are reviewing what’s on offer to see if there are more suitable things available. “It is quite difficult to get bespoke refurbishment health and safety courses because it was traditionally quite a small field,” he says. “It’s now a growing field but maybe the training providers in the industry haven’t quite caught up with that.”