The Western Trust in partnership with Farrans launched 'Buildhealth' an exciting new initiative for construction workers located on the Altnagelvin site in September 2008. The week long initiative is designed to promote health in the workplace for the construction workers on site.

The Men’s Workplace Health week took place in September 2008 and promoted the health and wellbeing of construction workers as well as raising awareness of important health issues that otherwise they may not have had the opportunity to learn about. According to the World Health Organisation - A healthy workplace or workplace health promotion is the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work.

The unique week included a wide range of events and seminars for employees to sign up to including: lifestyle health checks, backcare information sessions, mental health awareness, healthy eating advice, cancer and stroke awareness workshops, and physical activity advice.

This week long event is the first of its kind in Northern Ireland which has been developed under the Buildhealth initiative in partnership with Farrans Healthcare, Foyle Health@Work, and the Western Trust. ‘BuildHealth’ is a joint venture between the construction industry in Northern Ireland and the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland. The aim is to improve the health of the workforce in the Northern Ireland Construction Industry by:

• Effective management of the ill employee including rehabilitation

• Using the construction workplace as an environment in which health can be promoted.

It is intended that this scheme will be used as a template for the promotion of health and well-being of construction workers on other sites. To date a comprehensive health needs assessment has been carried out with staff and an inclusive action plan has been developed which will be rolled out on site over the coming months.

Attending the Launch, Mr Alan McKinney, Lead Clinician in Emergency Care and Medicine with the Western Trust said: “It is encouraging to see those groups here today for the launch of Men’s Workplace Health Week, who are so strongly committed to encouraging improvements in the health of those construction workers here at Altnagelvin Area Hospital. Sometimes the manual workforce can be overlooked when it comes to providing support and it can feel difficult for them to come forward with their concerns. The Buildhealth Initiative has shown that help and advice is available to them.”

Mr Darrell McGuckian,Contracts Manager, speaking on behalf of Farrans said: “Credit needs to be given to those groups involved who, together with Farrans, have drawn up an interesting programme of events for the forthcoming Men’s Health Week which will reach out to all our personnel on the Altnagelvin site. It will give our operatives the chance to learn how we, in our everyday working life, can strive to address some of the challenges to our health and wellbeing.”