THIS month, January 2018, the UK Asbestos Training Association (UKATA) marks a decade since it was established to manage training providers for licenced asbestos work and monitor standards.

During the last 10 years there have been profound changes for both UKATA and the wider world and while enormous strides have been made in asbestos training and awareness, the Association says more remains to be done.

UKATA is marking 10 years of asbestos training and safety with a series of special events and initiatives throughout 2018, including a special AGM, awards, additional charity work and an expansion of the “Train Safe, Work Safe, Keep Safe” campaign, which has already delivered thousands of hours of free asbestos awareness training across the country to those who otherwise have been unable to access it.

“In January 2008, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) passed responsibility for managing the list of training providers for licenced asbestos work to UKATA, tasking us with monitoring training standards,” said UKATA General Manager Craig Evans.

“Ten years on, UKATA has evolved from the original brief to fill the vacuum that existed in asbestos training, to offer our support and expertise to educate the nation on asbestos awareness.”

Back in 1999, asbestos was banned after the Government pledged to “deal effectively with the problems of asbestos”, but eight years on, millions of public buildings still contained the substance. The HSE Asbestos Training Providers’ Working Group (ATPWG) directed training enquiries to available providers but it was clear more needed to be done. The need for change was recognised and the formation of a training body was suggested, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Until asbestos related deaths are consigned to history, UKATA has a key role to play,” added Craig. “A decade down the line, asbestos remains a hidden killer, despite the latest HSE figures for 2015 showing more than 5,000 asbestos related deaths keeping asbestos in top spot as the biggest killer in the UK workplace.

“UKATA has built on the vision of our founders to improve the wider health and safety landscape. Yet with these figures projected to remain the same for the next decade, now is the time to redouble efforts to seeing a significant fall in the number of deaths from asbestos related illnesses like mesothelioma.”

UKATA is the leading authority for asbestos training provision in the United Kingdom.

Tasked by the HSE in 2008 to manage the licenced asbestos training providers, UKATA has gone from strength-to-strength and now has more than 180 member organisations from all corners of the UK.

For further information, visit: www.ukata.org.uk  or call 01246 824 437.

Alan Quick