http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/ms31.pdf (para 16) Explains the purpose of medical surveillance. This is not new, and has been applied to licensed task workers for a long time. HSE have no choice but to extend this to NNLW due to the wording/interpretation of the parent Directive and HSE have themselves expressed the view that they expect compliance with this new requirement wrt NNLW to be poor.

In fairness Bob, asbestos prosecutions are a common feature in SHP and related headlines. The problem perhaps is the paltry level of fines applied by the Courts. The risk is often seen as worth taking - even if you've been caught in the past! You have to admire the HSE for their honest opinion on likelihood of compliance?

Look at it this way. In the past people were often unaware that they had been exposed to asbestos. Whether they were working with it, near it or otherwise. Medical surveillance has been a fundamental part of CAWR/ CAR for many years now. Licensed or non-licensed work. The new category of NNLW means that people are still working with asbestos containing material. Why wouldn't you want to monitor their health in terms of asbestos exposure? The fact the diseases have a long latency is totally irrelevant. The opinion you expressed as 'then its too late' bewilders me. Do you not want to do your utmost to protect your people now so that in the future they might not develop asbestos related illness? Yes, people leave the industry and the medical surveillance might stop. But it might not. If someone has worked with asbestos they should at least know when it was/ who it was for/ etc. and a sensible person will keep the medical surveillance up. The legacy we have now is of people who have been exposed and have asbestos related illness but have trouble tracking down the companies they might have worked for due to cessation of trading, unscrupulous managers, slippery insurers, lack of awareness, etc, etc. That is not their fault. To me, it is the fault of employers with the 'then its too late' attitude.

Conversely, can anybody out there explain what the benefits of not carrying out medical surveillance for asbestos workers are?

There are other asbestos related diseases than the fatal and fast deterioration found with Mesothelioma. The health surveillance specifically mentioned, such as chest examinations and lung function check would pick up, not only the signs of mesothelioma, but also pleural plaques and other lung function restrictions (carcinomas?), scaring, inflammation or irritation. Of which irritation and inflammation does not have a long latency period. FEV / FVC, although not able to diagnose mesothelioma prior to onset, may however help identify other subtle changes to lung function indicative of exposure to asbestos and other dusts and thus make the individual and their employer aware that exposure is occurring. This has always been a requirement for the higher risk activities which were only carried out by licensed businesses/individuals, however this new category of work NNLW introduces a medium risk (due to the deterioration of materials/matrices for example), the proactive response to which was the introduction of the requirement for limited medical surveillance and exposure monitoring of individuals. So to answer the original question, not all asbestos related health effects are detrimental or have a long latency, many people live unaffected (mostly) by plural plaques which do not always progress into other more life threatening diseases. The health surveillance serves (as always) as a reference point for which a deterioration in an individuals health can highlight the potential lack of control or exposure to a hazardous substance, in this case asbestos. The result of this health surveillance will hopefully (but not always) prevent escalation or further exposures which may lead to life threatening asbestos related diseases, such as mesothelioma. Hope this has cleared things up a bit. Des

One of the basic reasons for HS, with any job, is to enure that the person is fit enough to do the job. Basically, a person with asthma/copd should not be in any job requiring them to wear any form of restrictive RPE...such as required in asbestos removal (and frequently not worn by operators because hard work wearing passive RPE is HARD work)