Preventing risks at construction sites

All roles must strive to prevent the work environment risks that can emerge in the construction phase or during the future use.

This requires that the roles think about what risks that can be in question and how they can be avoided already in the early stages of the construction project. It is also necessary to continue the work with risk assessments and measures through the whole construction phase.

Building and civil engineering work often implies many different risks for health and safety. The construction industry is one of the industries with most fatal accidents, and many construction workers suffer from occupational illness. The fact that many different suboperations are conducted at the same time, by different contractors, requires more coordination than work at a permanent workplace. In addition, it is common with a large number of people that work simultaneously in larger construction projects. The staff is also continuously changing when new contractors come and go. The work environment, and thus the risks for health and safety, can change each day.

The client and the designers should identify and try to prevent health and safety risks that can arise in the construction project already during the planning and design phase. The risks that can't be eliminated by client and designers choosing other solution, must be handled in some other way. The work with finding proper measures for those risks should also be initiated during the planning and design.

The building work environment coodinators, Bas-P and Bas-U, have an important role in ensuring that the different works are coordinated so that risks doesn’t occur because several construction operations are conducted at the same time or after each other.

During the construction phase, employers, self-employed and family-businesses need to work continuously with identifying remaining risks for health and safety and to prevent them. The preventive work at the construction site consists of both the contractors systematic work with their own work environment and the joint planning that the building work environment coordintator for the construction phase (Bas-U) leads.

Here you can read more about risks for health and safety in construction projects:

Manage the risks for health and safety that remains in the construction phase

Documentation for future construction work