What is the problem ?

OPALs is designed to cut losses to construction employers arising from accidents and work related ill health. By harnessing the power of Worker Engagement, OPALs aims to deliver benefits in worker education, harm prevention, productivity, and site safety, to construction employers and the wider industry.

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The construction industry in the UK has over 2m workers, over half of which work for the largest 700 employers. The biggest 100 employers employers have a combined turnover of over £70Bn, and collectively spend many millions of pounds on H&S training.

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The key problem - HSE statistics show that the total cost of losses due to accidents and ill health in construction in the year 2022/23 is estimated at £1.4 billion, (95% confidence interval £1,054M - £1,838M). In addition to these costs , the total losses to productivity will be much higher if the indirect costs of loss of work days, damage to machinery and plant and delays to projects, are also factored in.

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To make things worse;

            - There are currently no  recognised methods for systematic sharing of generalised accident and ill health prevention                 insights across construction – these are the norm in other industries such as aviation.

            - Even within organisations, unbiased accident information is rarely widely shared, and there are many barriers to                     generating insights from accidents from the workforce.

            - This means that the same accidents happen again and again for the same reasons - both within companies, and                         across the industry.

OPALs identifies and targets two areas to improve the problem scenario described above. 
            1) Discussion and interaction with the workforce to educate on accident causation, and to draw insights from                              experienced workers.
             2) The analysis and structured capture of accident prevention data which can be shared between employers and                          with the wider industry.
 

To give an indication of the economic benefits which could accrues from sharing accident prevention data, we can use the approach from the ODI Report from 2022- Sharing Data Saving Lives. This report concluded that there are economic benefits which can accrue through sharing design risk data and improving construction risk management as a result. The last major improvements to Health & Safety were seen between 2004/5 and 2009/10. If data sharing can replicate these improvements, this is equivalent to up to a 30% saving (of £198 million p.a.) in injury costs in Construction. See the ODI Report Sharing Data Saving Lives 2022