Health & Safety Consultants

The replacement of the CDM regulations in 2015 saw the removal of the CDM Coordinators role and the introduction of the Principal Designer. Creating three main roles for managing the health and safety of construction projects, with the client having overall responsibility for the successful execution of the projects, and the Principal Designer (PD) and Principal Contractor (PC) leading during the different phases of the project.

• All projects must have workers with the right skills, knowledge, training, and experience (competency). Contractors providing the appropriate supervision, instruction and information, and a written construction phase plan
• Projects with more than one contractor involved must have a principal designer and a principal contractor appointed and a health and safety file
• If the planned work is scheduled to be longer than 30 working days, have more than 20 workers, working simultaneously at any point, or exceed 500 person-days. Then the client is responsible to notify the Health and Safety Executive using the F10 notification.

General Duties

• The Principal Designer MUST have the Skills, Knowledge and Training & Experience (SKATE) to take on the role
• If the Principal Designer appoints any other Designers or Contractors – Make sure they have the necessary SKATE
• Co-operate with everyone involved in the project and make sure everyone else co-operates with each other
• Report any Health & Safety issues that they become aware of to whom they are working for
• When providing information or instruction – make sure it is comprehensible and provide in good time

Specific Duties

The Principal Designer must

• Plan, manage and monitor Health and Safety in the Pre-Construction Phase, in particular, when
  • Design, technical and organisational aspects of the project are being decided
  • Estimating periods of time required for programming the work
• Assist the Client in providing the Pre Construction Information
• Make sure that all designs take account of the General Principles of Prevention to identify and eliminate foreseeable risks to people building, maintaining, cleaning & using a structure where possible.
• Control residual risks and provide clear information on these to other duty holders when it isn’t possible to eliminate them
• Ensure all other designers comply with their duties
• Assist the Client in providing the Pre Construction Information & distribute this to all other duty holders
• Liaise with the Principal Contractor in planning the Construction Phase and assist the PC in preparing the Construction Phase Plan.
• Prepare the Health and Safety File during the Pre-Construction Phase, develop this during the construction phase and hand it to the client on completion.

Dedicated CDM Advisor

You will be allocated a dedicated CDM advisor who will be your single point of contact throughout the project. They will work closely with you to help ensure that you are doing everything to fulfil your duties as required by the CDM 2015 Regulations.

Site Health & Safety Surveys

Your CDM advisor will undertake an initial visit to the proposed construction site to ascertain existing health and safety issues and to identify where further information will be required before the start of construction.

Pre – Construction Information

Following a survey of the site, a report will be prepared for inclusion in the pre-construction information, detailing potential health and safety issues identified using existing surveys and reports.

F10 Management

We will ensure that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is notified as appropriate and that this notification is managed for the lifetime of your project.

Construction Phase Plan Review

We will liaise with the principal contractor to ensure a suitable Construction Phase Plan is produced to enable work to begin on-site.

Health & Safety File

All Health and Safety documentation will be collated into the Health and Safety File which will be prepared ready for the construction and operational phases of the project.