Twenty Tradespeople Die Every Week From Asbestos Related Diseases

The Health and Safety Executive has launched a safety campaign to increase the awareness of asbestos related risks.

The campaign is aimed at all tradespeople (including construction workers, carpenters and painters and decorators) who, according to a new survey, could come into contact with deadly asbestos on average more than 100 times a year. The statistics are based on the results of a survey of 500 tradespeople in Great Britain carried out by Censuswide in September 2014, commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which also revealed that:

• 1 in 7 people surveyed believed that drinking a glass of water will help protect them from asbestos dust;
• 1 in 4 people surveyed thought that opening a window will help to keep them safe;
• Only 1 in 3 people surveyed were able to identify all the correct measures for safe asbestos working;
• Half of those surveyed made at least one potentially lethal mistake in trying to identify how to stay safe; and
• While more than half of those surveyed knew that asbestos could be in old buildings built before 1970, only 15% knew it could still be found in buildings built up to 2000.

A key feature of the new campaign is a a free web app that helps people identify where they could come into contact with asbestos as they go about their day-to-day work and which provides tailored help on how to deal with the risks.

The campaign also includes includes:

• Free asbestos safety kits distributed through TradePoint stores across Great Britainr
• Promotion of key messages through commercial organisations that interact regularly with the target audience
• National press advertising to raise awareness of the dangers of asbestos and drive use of the free web app from November
• Delivering messages through stakeholders.