Who is responsible for ensuring the quality of building work and compliance with health and safety guidance on the building site for the new Velindre Cancer Centre, and is the Cabinet Secretary aware of any accidents or lack of compliance on-site?
The Acorn Consortium is responsible for ensuring the quality of building work and compliance with health and safety at the site of the new Velindre Cancer Centre.
Under the Construction, Design and Management (CDM) Regulations 2015, health and safety at the site is the legal responsibility of the contractor, as is the case with all construction sites.
To aid in the quality management, there has been a joint appointment (between Acorn and the Velindre University NHS Trust) of an independent tester who monitors quality of works at the site and is responsible for certifying the building as being compliant with all aspects of the specification and the wider contract.
This type of appointment is seen as best practice in public-private partnership construction builds. Under the Welsh Government’s Mutual Investment Model (MiM) policy, the authority also appointed a qualified construction surveyor on behalf of both the NHS trust and the government to assure quality during the construction phase.
Health and Safety observations are reported to the Trust Public Scrutiny Committee – the papers for which are publicly available.