Duty holders & appointments
What is health surveillance?
Health surveillance is the ongoing monitoring of workers exposed to specific health risks — noise, vibration, dust and some substances — to detect early signs of harm.
Construction's health risks are slow and their effects appear years later, which is exactly why surveillance exists: by the time someone notices a symptom, the damage is generally permanent.
It is required where there is an identifiable disease linked to the exposure and valid techniques for detecting it. That makes it a consequence of the risk assessment rather than a separate programme.
Its findings should feed back into controls. Surveillance that detects harm and changes nothing about the exposure has monitored a decline.
What goes wrong in practice
- Surveillance carried out with no route back into the risk assessment.
- Agency and subcontract workers excluded from the programme.
- Records not retained for the period required.