With construction site safety a top priority for Skanska, the company has brought a special mobile unit to its hospital project in Walsgrave this week to enable the workforce to take an important health & safety test.
Passing the test demonstrates site worker’s understanding and knowledge of safe working practices and is essential to obtain a CSCS card, a new industry-wide accreditation scheme to prove a worker’s competence to operate on a construction site. The unit, the first to be introduced by a construction company, is Skanska’s initiative to meet the industry target of a 100 per cent CSCS card-carrying workforce by the end of 2003.
Skanska anticipates over 200 people, mainly working for subcontractors, will take the test in the unit while at Walsgrave. Project director Paul Wright, said, “Safety is always the overriding priority for Skanska and it’s important everyone working on our sites carries a CSCS card. Many subcontractors do not have the resource, time or back-up support to organise the test for their employees, so our mobile unit does it for them.
“The test takes one hour and includes questions on how to avoid accidents while carrying out day-to-day tasks, procedures to report incidents and the correct use tools and materials. ”
Skanska started work last year on its design and build contract for a new 1212–bed acute hospital at Walsgrave for University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. It’s the UK’s largest hospital in 30 years and the biggest ever under the Private Finance Initiative, consolidating the Walsgrave and Coventry and Warwickshire hospitals into a single, state-of-the-art development. The entire scheme will be completed in 2007.