Keeping the UK building safely

A new PROTECT report examines the challenges the construction sector has faced during the coronavirus pandemic.

Construction workers have played a vital role in keeping the country running throughout the pandemic, despite huge challenges at all levels.

 

We found that front line staff were worried about not only their physical and mental health but, above all, the economic impact of the pandemic on themselves and their families.

Professor Neil Bourne / Director of the Thomas Ashton Institute and co-author of the report

A report published as part of the PROTECT COVID-19 National Core Study on transmission and environment assesses the UK construction sector’s efforts to build ‘COVID-secure’ workplaces.

The evidence collected by the report’s authors at the Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research will support efforts to keep the UK building safely as the economy unlocks.

Keeping the country running

Using survey and interview data from four principal construction contractors, the report highlights the practical challenges the sector has faced as construction workers played a key role in keeping the country running during the pandemic.

The report found that effective dialogue and well-established safety culture has enabled the construction sector to respond quickly to the challenges of COVID-19, implementing modified working practices and control measures that have been largely successful in limiting transmission of the virus in the workplace.

We are talking to sub-contractors in the industry to better understand their perspectives and develop our recommendations.

 

It was clear that the overriding pressure in the first phase of the pandemic was from work already committed to; as one director we interviewed told us, ‘COVID may have changed the world, but not the contract on this job!'

Professor Neil Bourne

Mixed responses

However, the sector’s focus on workforce health and safety has sometimes conflicted with contractual and productivity pressures, with a mixed response from clients.

Factors largely outside the employer’s control, such as the travel, socialising and living arrangements of the sector’s diverse workforce, have also made it harder to control transmission.

It reinforces the message that transmission is a continuous societal risk where the workplace cannot be entirely insulated.

Moving forward

The report also found that, over time, COVID-19 responses in some parts of the construction sector have become less effective, with a reduction in worker compliance with control measures.

In the future, a continued commitment to safety and continued engagement with workers is essential to control and reduce the transmission of the virus.

Read the full report

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