30 Healthier Highways - improving worker health protection in the highways sector. A case study from the UK’s motorway network

The highways maintenance, renewal and improvement industry spends some £5Bn of public money each year on the UK’s motorways and other national road infrastructure. Occupational hygiene has made negligible impact in this this sector of the construction industry, despite it employing some 30% of the 1.4M strong construction workforce. With its cocktail of occupational exposure hazards, mobile sites, long-standing working practices and significant night time working, the highways industry needs a health protection culture transformation. The authors present a case study on the expanding initiative, known as Healthier Highways, to improve workplace health protection culture on the UK’s motorway network in a multi-stakeholder environment. Initially developed on the M25 (London’s orbital motorway), but now expanded across the Southeast Region of National Highways and beyond, they outline the Healthier Highways strategic approach to engaging organisations and workers unfamiliar with occupational hygiene. The on-going initiative covers the areas of stakeholder engagement, organisational competence, investigation and control of specific health risks, supply chain management of health risk and sector collaboration and leadership. Outcomes from all five areas of the award winning initiative are presented, showing marked improvement in the overall culture of health protection and pointing the way to a health culture transformation in the highways industry.