Businesses urged to take action on asbestos
Published on Tue 27 Feb 2007
27 February is Action Mesothelioma Day - a campaign that aims to raise awareness of the dangers of asbestos.
Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that principally affects the lining of the lungs and lower digestive tract ? it is caused by exposure to asbestos.
There is normally a long delay between first exposure to asbestos and death from mesothelioma (seldom less than 15 years, but possibly as long as 60 years); because of this delay it has been calculated that the number of UK cases will continue to rise until 2015.
According to the British Lung Foundation (BLF) more than 2,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year in Britain, and someone dies from it every five hours. The Foundation claims that an epidemic of mesothelioma will peak in less than ten years, particularly affecting those now in their sixties who worked in the construction industry and their families.
The Action Mesothelioma campaign centres on the Mesothelioma Charter, which calls for better care and treatment, better protection for employees and more funding for research. It was presented to 10 Downing Street on 27 February 2006 with more than 14,000 signatures to mark the launch of the campaign.
This year the British Lung Foundation is continuing the campaign to achieve the aims set out in the 15 point Charter to help prevent future generations being exposed to asbestos and to ensure those affected by mesothelioma have the support and care they need.Businesses that fail to adequately protect their employees from asbestos often have to pay out high levels of compensation.
In recent cases:
- a woman received a six figure compensation sum from the MoD after developing mesothelioma from asbestos she breathed in while hugging her father as a child
- last year, in what is believed to be one of the highest ever settlements, a carpenter suffering from mesothelioma won damages of ?400,000 from his former employer
- also last year, a company and its director were fined £15,000 for stripping out potentially deadly asbestos from a building without running safety checks and then forging documents suggesting everything had been done by the book.
In light of Action Mesothelioma Day the TUC is urging firms to do more to protect workers against exposure to asbestos.
The organisation says that many employers do not know if their buildings contain asbestos and is calling on employers to find out if the substance is on their premises, and then clear it.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber comments: "No worker's life should be put at risk by employers who just cannot be bothered to get a simple survey done."
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 came into force in November 2006.
The Regulations superseded three previous sets of regulations - the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002, the Asbestos (Licensing) Regulations 1983, as amended, and the Asbestos (Prohibitions) Regulations 1992, as amended.
In an audio interview with Workplace Law Network, John Richards, Managing Director of asbestos consultancy Thames Laboratories, explains that Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 was "introduced to create a specific duty for people occupying or managing properties to have in place processes to control the risk from asbestos".
Under Regulation 4 employers should:
- take reasonable steps to find out if there are materials containing asbestos in non-domestic premises, and if so, its amount, where it is and what condition it is in
- presume materials contain asbestos unless there is strong evidence that they do not
- make, and keep up-to-date, a record of the location and condition of the asbestos containing materials - or materials which are presumed to contain asbestos
- assess the risk of anyone being exposed to fibres from the materials identified
- prepare a plan that sets out in detail how the risks from these materials will be managed
- take the necessary steps to put the plan into action
- periodically review and monitor the plan and the arrangements to act on it so that the plan remains relevant and up-to-date
- provide information on the location and condition of the materials to anyone who is liable to work on or disturb them.
This duty to manage covers all non-domestic premises. Such premises include all industrial, commercial or public buildings such as factories, warehouses, offices, shops, hospitals and schools.
To comply duty holders must:
- find out whether the premises contains asbestos, and, if so, where it is and what condition it is in. If in doubt, materials must be presumed to contain asbestos
- assess the risk
- make a plan to manage that risk and act on it.
The entire interview with John Richards is free to download in from the Asbestos Guidance section.
