Public Housing Authority Occupational Hygiene Monitoring

Our client provides an in-house maintenance service, there are approximately 450 employees, covering tasks as diverse as grounds maintenance, response maintenance and electrical inspection.

Through risk assessment, our client identified the need for measurement of exposure to chemical and physical health hazards; such as respirable dust and fumes produced and noise and vibration levels generated during specific work tasks for both static work sites and service users’ properties. This included evaluating exposure to:

• Hazardous vapours, fumes, or dusts e.g. chemicals, paints, solvents, wood dusts, etc. 
• Vibration (hand-arm and whole-body) e.g. bench grinders, reciprocating saws, air ratchets, portable hand drills etc.
• Noise e.g. from tools/plant and processes. 

Monitoring was to be completed on a representative sampling basis, with lessons learned shared progressively throughout the project. 

Arthian’s experienced occupational hygiene team mobilised, providing a holistic service for the client. This included:

• Initial briefing sessions to staff and Trade Union Health and Safety Representatives.
• Advice on refinement of occupational hygiene monitoring programme, targeting most hazardous substances/processes in a cost-effective manner.
• Efficient monitoring techniques, utilising experienced staff to carry out simultaneous occupational hygiene (air), noise and vibration monitoring, thus reducing downtime.
• Provision of an internal database as an aid to tool  choice and purchasing, populated with results of monitoring.
• Concise, focused and peer-reviewed technical reports, providing advice on working practices, tool selection, local exhaust ventilation and personal protective equipment.
• Recommendations for future monitoring programmes.
• Single point of contact to simplify communications.
• Regular project updates provided. 
• Ad-hoc advice provided throughout the contract.  

Over 25 days of on-site monitoring were completed, including 100s of work processes and equipment. This aided control improvements, assisted in the refinement of occupational health surveillance, and ultimately improved worker health.