Posted By ccbailey Can you please help, a colleague of mine wishes to undertake the NEBOSH Construction Cert, he has been 'on site' for more than twenty years but has been told he must pass the General certificate first, is this true and of any benefit as will continue to be construction site based. Many thanks

Posted By peter gotch CC It used to be the case that to do NEBOSH Construction Certificate that you had to also do the General Certificate [either first or integrated into a 5 or 6 week full time equivalent course. After extensive liaison between IOSH Construction Specialist Group spearheaded by John Lacey, NEBOSH finally came round to the idea that you could have a parallel course to the General, and produced a new syllabus for this. Problem may be finding a provider. Regards, Peter

Posted By Teresa Budworth Reply from NEBOSH: As previous posters have indicated there is no requirement to hold the NEBOSH National General Certificate before undertaking the Construction Certificate. In fact there are more recent changes than that mentioned by Peter above. All of NEBOSH's Certificate level qualifications are now made up of a number of different "Units". You can choose to study and be assessed on each unit separately. The Construction Certificate has a Unit on Construction Health and safety (NCC1), and a Unit on health and safety management (NGC1) - which is common to the National General Certificate and the Fire Certificate To obtain the qualification you need to pass the exam for Unit NGC1 (or have obtained it as part of the General or Fire Certificate within the last 5 years, or be exempt because you hold a higher NEBOSH qualification obtained in the last 5 years) AND pass the exam for Unit NCC1 AND pass a practical assessment -Unit NCC2 (an inspection and report on safety on a construction site). You can choose to do the two exams in either order, at separate sittings up to 5 years apart or you can choose simply to do the Unit you are particularly interested in and will receive a Unit Certificate denoting your achievement. For example, if you already have a non-NEBOSH Diploma or degree in health and safety, or obtained you NEBOSH NGC1 equivalent more than 5 years ago, you won't learn anything from taking Unit NGC1, so why not just do the Construction Units? The other option if you really want the whole qualification in these circumstances is to study only the Unit you are interested in, but sit both examinations. If you take both exams and the practical at the same sitting, then the examination fee to NEBOSH is the same as just doing the two construction Units (although the course provider may charge you an additional fee for invigilation.) Hope this helps. The NEBOSH web site has guidance on all our qualifications, and our customer service team - 0116 263 4700 - are happy to deal with queries too