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PAGE11LEIAANNUALREVIEW2016 awareness and clarifying some of the mixed messages around occupational health. She said We are constructing the health or the ill healthof the future.We are still exposing people to asbestos and other hazardsand we have three times as many occupational cancers as in any other sector. The launch event culminated in 171 chief executives and senior leaders in the industry signing a pledge committing their organisations to eliminate occupational ill health and disease in my company and from the industry. OUT HEALTH DR SIMON HOUGHTON TALKS TOUGH ON ASBESTOS and 50 and the impact it has on virtually all other standards says John. John has worked for more than 20 years at Lift Engineering Services Limiteda company primarily concentrating on modernisationand it is here that he has honed the skills required to upgrade lifts in occupied premisesdealing with aspects ranging from access asbestos to structural implications of modernisation. Questions also arise when it comes to modernisation of the increasingly popular Machine Roomless lifts MRLsdeveloped when new designs of ropesand plastic belt drives resolved suspension issues. One of the unexpected consequences of modernisation of MRLs is that the control panels are concealed at the tops of buildings often in the lift door architrave. Owners of an exclusive penthouse suite in the most expensive accommodation are not always particularly welcoming to lift engineers needing access to the control panel says John with a wry smile. This leads on to the general issue of customer relations with the end user as well as the building owner or construction clientparticularly in residential property. John has seen a significant change in customer and user attitudes. Thirty years agoresidents would simply have been told that the work was going to be done and that they would simply have to put up with the inconvenience. But now residents expect councils to make appropriate arrangements. J OHNWilkinson is a veteran of the lift industrystarting as an apprentice draughtsman at Platt Schindler nearly fifty years agobecoming a member of the British Standards Institute and serving on the LEIA Quality andTechnical Committee QTC for close on twenty years. As a Director of a medium sized companyI was at first rather conscious that I was not able to fly around the world and gather information for the industry like my colleagues in the multi nationalsbut I then began to appreciate how much you can contribute to a committee through discussing the reasons behind technical decisions reality testingif you like he says. LEIAsTechnical Director Nick Mellor endorses the value of Johns contribution highlighting the very interesting presentation on improving the accessibility of lifts he gave at the modernisation seminar last year. See page 4. John sees great value in participating in committee workboth as an individual and also for the industry as a whole. Most recentlythe QTC has got to grips with the modernising of CE marked lifts and components particularly the requirement for Unintended Car Movement Protection UCMP and has sent out notification to members about the need to ensure that from 20April 2016 there will be a new directive requiring UCMP devices placed on to the market from that date to be CE marked. What are the other issues on the horizon for the Committee At present these centre around the introduction of BS EN 81-20 Listening to the customer MODERNISATION JOHN WILKINSON MODERNISATION UNDER WAY Continued overleaf The Chief Executive of the HSEDame Judith Hackittlinks improvements in workplace health to productivity gains and tackling skills shortages. She comments that the solution requires some different thinking but that ..the industry has a good track record on culture change in safety and now is the time to apply it to health. But its not just about reducing costs to businesses and employees.At a time of skills shortagespeople can choose who they work forand they will choose those who care. Cause for concern work-related cancers kill about 3500 construction workers a year the construction sector lost 0.5 million working days to injury in 201415but 1.2 million working days a year to work-related ill health the cost of work-related ill health to the UK economy was 9.4bn in 201415 and 1.3bn to the construction sector 20 tradespeople die from asbestos- induced diseases every week.