News

Supporting HCLG's 2025 Initiative

News

The Health in Construction Leadership Group (HCLG) was formed in 2014 to encourage those in the construction industry to be more health conscious on site. The group, comprised of industry professionals, trade associations and trade unions, and their mission is to eradicate ill health and disease caused by exposures to health hazards on building sites. HCLG is aiming to make the construction industry a leader in occupational health and disease prevention by 2025 – known as the construction 2025 initiative.

In 2019, HCLG conducted a survey to gain insight into challenges faced by construction workers and to understand what organisations are doing to drive change. The key highlights of the survey are listed below:

• 79% of respondents said that their organisation has placed an increased emphasis on tackling ill health over the past 4 years.
• 50% of respondents cited dust as the most important area of ill-health to tackle in construction, whilst 40% thought mental health was the most important area.
  
• Many respondents shared examples of how their organisations had focused on tackling health. The majority said that campaigns and initiatives to raise awareness and educate on health, particularly around mental health, had been employed. Others reported that health is being discussed more openly with increasing understanding and that buy-in and support for measures being introduced to address the issues has also been successful.
  
• Conversely, respondents also listed a range of obstacles still faced in terms of tackling ill health – in particular, changing attitudes and getting people to understand the risks and do things differently is still a challenge, along with time/costs associated with making changes.
  
  

These results are both enlightening and encouraging, but also highlight the continual need for raising awareness of onsite hazards and the impacts they have on health. RVT’s mission is to protect the long-term health of all those on site or nearby, and we are proud to support HCLG’s construction 2025 initiative.

For more information about HCLG click here.