Government Business

While a large proportion of these deaths are likely to be the legacy of exposure to the deadly fibres several decades ago, asbestos is not just a risk of a bygone age and today’s tradesmen cannot afford to be complacent.

Any building built or refurbished before 2000 may contain asbestos, including around 500,000 non-domestic buildings. This, in itself, should not be a concern if the asbestos is carefully managed, remains undamaged and undisturbed. The biggest risk is to tradesmen who may be exposed to it through cutting or drilling.

The Health and Safety Executive’s ‘hidden killer’ campaign is about raising awareness of the risks and what workers can do to protect themselves. However, just as important is businesses and organisations knowing their legal responsibilities when it comes to asbestos.

Duty of care
Those responsible for the maintenance and repair of public or commercial buildings, or communal areas of buildings, have a legal responsibility to ensure that contractors or maintenance workers who may disturb asbestos know where it is and what condition it is in. This should be readily available in a written report or a computer record. Workers have a right to see it and should know to ask for it.

A recent case which brings into sharp focus the need for robust arrangements to manage the risks of asbestos, is the prosecution of Edinburgh Council by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in November 2009 for breaching the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006.

The authority was fined £14,000 after 14 of its employees were potentially exposed to it while carrying out refurbishment work on laboratory doors taken from a high school which disturbed the asbestos core inside.

Although the council had carried out a survey of the premises which identified the asbestos core in the doors, there was no register on the school site and the summary provided to workers was not sufficient to alert them to the danger. It was also noted that the council did not carry out a sufficient risk assessment prior to the work commencing in 2007.

Awareness training
Employers whose staff may come across asbestos-containing materials during the course of their work have a duty to provide adequate information, instruction and training. Unless employees will never work on buildings that contain asbestos, awareness training is required. This includes:

• the properties of asbestos and what it can do to them
• the types of products and materials which may contain asbestos
• what to do in an emergency
• avoiding asbestos, e.g. not working unless the employer has confirmed there is no asbestos in the building.

If workers plan to disturb asbestos they will need job-specific training for non-licensed work, as well as awareness training. This will give employees the skills to: 

• use and fit a face mask
• use safe work methods
• deal with asbestos waste
• safely carry out non-licensed tasks such as drilling a hole in asbestos insulation board.

Some asbestos work can only be carried out by licensed contractors such as if the asbestos materials are sprayed coatings, board or insulation and lagging on pipes and boilers. It is the ‘duty holders’ responsibility − the owner or manager of the building – to ensure this is only carried out by a contractor licensed by HSE.

Regulations
Under the Control of Asbestos Regulations, in cases of final demolition or major refurbishment work asbestos should, as far as reasonably practicable be removed before other major work begins.

Asbestos regulations do not apply to domestic premises, other than in common areas, so there is unlikely to be a prepared record of asbestos. It is therefore essential that workers undoing any domestic work have the adequate level of training to protect themselves.

Asbestos Essentials task sheets will show how to do a range of non-licensed tasks safely. They are free to download at www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/essentials

For information on the Hidden Killer campaign and advice on training and licensed asbestos removal visit www.hse.gov.uk/hiddenkiller

Learning the hard way
Together they have travelled the world to such far-flung places as India and Mexico, but now Chris Morgan and his partner Jean are sharing a completely different experience – the pain and emotional stress of his terminal cancer caused by working with asbestos.

Chris, a 58-year-old former pipe fitter used to cycle 19 miles to work and back every day, but the once active father of three daughters and grandfather to eight now has to resort to sleeping in a chair to avoid the pain he suffers when laying down.

Chris can trace the cause of his mesothelioma back to his days as an apprentice in a metals firm in London’s famous jewellery quarter, Hatton Garden. He breathed in deadly asbestos fibres when breaking the substance from pipes with a hammer and sweeping it up before cutting new asbestos jointing and rope to insulate boilers. He was never told anything about the dangers he faced and was never given any protective equipment.

Don’t take the risk
Chris said: “I think it’s absolutely disgusting that there are people still being exposed to this material. They need to learn what asbestos looks like. If they come across something that looks like it could be asbestos they should report it and not disturb it until they know for sure. It is best to be wrong and live than to take a chance and die.”

His warning to tradesmen is personal, stark and pleading: “I was once like you, fit, healthy and doing what I wanted to. Now look at the state of me, all because I didn’t take asbestos seriously and just saw it as a little bit of dust.

“You may be 17, 18 or any other age, but you’re not immortal and what you do today may have terrible consequences 30 years down the road. 30 or 40 years may seem like a long time, but I can assure you it isn’t. That time goes fast. If you take risks with asbestos you could die of mesothelioma and it is not a nice disease. If you want to live longer and not die then listen to what I’m saying. Take it seriously and don’t expose yourself to it.”

You can hear Chris’s touching story at www.hse.gov.uk/hiddenkiller

Asbestos takes another life
Pauline Bonney vividly remembers the day she found out her husband was going to die – it was the eve of her fifth wedding anniversary, That was August 1998 and just a few months later – with Christmas not long passed – he was dead at 51, cruelly having fallen victim to mesothelioma – a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibres. 

Pauline cannot forget her feelings of devastation after hearing her husband tell her he was going to die. She said: “I tried to carry on but John’s words gutted my world. Every day became a day nearer to his death from asbestos. I felt he was being cheated out of his life, and I was being cheated out of my life with him.”

John had inhaled the deadly fibres as a young man when he worked as an apprentice electrician. Like many other tradesmen at that time, he never knew the risks associated with his work, nor was he ever told about or offered protective wear.

He was a location technician setting up lighting in theatres and film studios. He came into contact with asbestos through handling wires coated in the substance.

Along with many colleagues, John was never told of the risks of working with this deadly substance. Pauline said if he knew the risks, he would have demanded he was protected: “John was an active man. He was hard-working, skilled, energetic and had a positive outlook on life. If he had any idea his life was being put at risk through his job, he would have insisted on being kept safe. I have no doubt he’d have ensured he was protected. Such simple things like training and masks and surveying buildings for asbestos would have saved his life.”

Fit & healthy
John had always been fit and healthy but 30 years after he changed jobs he developed a cough and flu-like symptoms. He thought it would pass, but instead it got worse. A dedicated family man, he carried on working and tried to protect his wife and two stepdaughters, Christy and Jenna, but he could not hide his illness for long.

Several months after his symptoms first appeared, John collapsed at home. His lips turned blue and his chest was tight. At this point, both John and Pauline knew it was not something that would go away on its own. Pauline took John to hospital where he was wrongly diagnosed with pleurisy – the truth turned out to be much worse.

John’s health deteriorated and the treatment he was given did not help his condition. His desire to protect his family and keep the terrible truth from them as long as possible, led to him making trips to the doctor in secret.

He went for treatment but mesothelioma is a terminal illness. He carried on putting his wife and family first until he died on 26 February 1999 in a local hospital.

Pauline has since learnt that other people who worked as electricians, like John, have also developed symptoms and died. She has a strong message for employers and workers today: “This disease can be prevented, so it should it prevented. Young people now should be aware of the dangers of asbestos. Workers need to know the risks, have training and protect themselves. Employers should not cut corners; they need to keep their workers safe. Nothing is worth risking people’s lives like this for.

“Regulations are in place. Please, please adhere to them. John was not the first to suffer in this way, and sadly he won’t be the last but there is hope for the young tradesmen of today.”

Ten years on from John’s death, Pauline still volunteers with the South East Victim Support Group where she helps family members affected by the death of loved ones to asbestos-related diseases.

She is backing the Health and Safety Executive’s Hidden Killer campaign. The campaign aims to raise awareness among tradesman of the risks posed by asbestos and will target plumbers, electricians, joiners and other general maintenance workers with the hard-hitting fact that every week on average 20 tradesmen die from this hidden killer. Tradesmen need to understand the risks and their rights when working with asbestos, and take action to protect themselves so they don’t end up exposed to asbestos like John – “a victim of asbestos needlessly killed”.