You comment "let's stick to reality", well let's.

An Asbestos medical, including a "fit 2 work" examination costs £170, and is required every two years.

That's £85 per year.

Your employees not worth that?

Consider the cost of having the "evidence" from these medicals against the cost of any potential claim for asbestos exposure in the future.

Rodger Ker.

If I understand your query correctly I would be surprised if a plumber would inadvertantly be exposed to asbestos levels above the control limit whilst out on an average job, especially if they have had some awareness training. Of course if they are likely to be exposed above the control limit on a regualr basis then they should have medical surveillance but I would expect that to be for an asbestos removal operative who is also a plumber. If you are just talking about one off, incidental exposure then the HSE suggest that x-rays and the like are unnecessary. You may find the HSE publications MS31 and MS34 of interest.

Wolrad - basic flaw in the logic - if the work is licensable - .... you need a license.......

If you have a license you will have medicals

Kind regards

Bruce

Thanks for the replies, we are exempt from notification as the work is emergency work and cannot be planned, officious inspector assures me it licensable and if you read the regs. how they interpret it, an absolute duty exists and argument is limited!

There does not appear a way of applying logic or a risk based process.

I will read through your recommended text and prepare for round 2!!

Thanks again, asbestos is not my strong point!

wolrad,


I don't understand what your posts are 'really' asking. There seems to a be lot of question marks that do not make grammatical sense to me. Your last post though contains a really dangerous (and wrong) statement, i.e 'we are exempt from notification as the work is emergency work and cannot be planned...'. No one is exempt from notification unless they fall into Regs 31 to 37 of CAR 2012. I don't believe that plumbers are mentioned in these specific regulations 31 to 37.
You refer to an 'officious inspector'. You would be foolish not to follow advice that you are given. Unless you don't want to hear what you are being told.
Yep, asbestos is definitely not your stong point. I suggest you get someone who knows how to deal with this matter.
I do not wish to offend or upset you only to stress that your apparent shortcomings need to be addressed by someone who understands and interprets the regulations properly. For the sake of your operatives.

It is good to see that the post replies end up with someone trying to prove there higher level of knowledge as usual. Yes the reason I made my only second post in 10 years is because I am unsure of my ground and I thought it might be good to get other's opinion's, thanks to those who made the effort, it does look like I am barking up the wrong tree but I cannot be right all the time.
I know I am intelligent my school reports told me so, I know how dangerous asbestos is, especially if you swallow some, I also know an awful lot about controlling it.
The question was whether the view of the inspector with regard to the regs. was correct or if my interpretation of them had any merit.
Which is:
If you cannot guarantee your employee will not be exposed to asbestos above the limit then the work is licensable. The regs. make no mention of the employee being anything to do with asbestos, such as an asbestos removal person, it says employee.
So my understanding is anyone who may come into contact with asbestos in their employment will be subject to the regs.
Which means that anyone who may enter a premise and disturb asbestos would need medicals as there is no way the employer can guarantee that they would not be over exposed. Whilst in refurbishment work you would arrange a survey, in remedial or emergency work that would not happen.
It is not possible to notify work which has to happen immediately to stop more damage being done to a property, the inspector accepts that.
The question was not anything about how nasty asbestos is! It is two interpretations of some legislation, you remember how the abrasive wheel regs came about!!

I sincerely hope I have misread or misunderstood the last couple of comments because I feel it is the sort of 'going off the subject' that contributes to our profession being viewed as boring elf and safety boring jobsworths.

Wolrad, what you have asked us is unrealistic. We simply do not know enough about your work and how it is planned and managed and some of the statements made so far give us cause for concern.

If you have had a run-in with an Inspector, then perhaps there is something that you need to be doing to improve the planning and management of the work. Asking us for a legal way of avoiding something you have been asked to do is not reasonable. Angels fear to tread, I’m afraid.

So please treat us as your allies, and give us a better understanding of your position.

Asbestos is not my 'specialist subject' either but I'll take a stab at this.......

The OP suggests that the workforce who may be exposed are plumbers. If they were my workers I would probably be looking to ensure that they all were 'up to speed' with respect to Asbestos Awareness training. The key point being their knowledge about the risks of exposure and the various forms of ACM that they might encounter in the workplace.

Thereafter I'd make sure that they all understand that if they encounter asbestos/ACM and there is any risk that their works might disturb it and/or involve exposure then they should walk away.

As a next step if 'walking away' is not going to acceptable in the longer term then perhaps you might also want to choose to train a subset of the plumbers to a higher level and include them in a screening programme if you have no alternative but to carry out work that might involve exposure.

If you do this you can reduce costs - screening and additional training - to cover a percentage of specialists who would be called upon to perform the tasks that most of the workforce have been instructed to walk away from.

Bottom line on this from my perspective - I deal with a team of engineers who work with pumps so not unrelated to the plumbing trades - all of my guys are AA trained and are clearly instructed to walk away rather than risk disturbing anything likely to be ACM/asbestos. With that approach I'm comfortable that none of them are being exposed and therefore screening is unnecessary.