Health and Safety Plan for construction projects

Do you want to start a construction project that may involve safety risks? You must draw up a Health and Safety Plan (veiligheids- en gezondheidsplan, V&G-plan). This plan explains how the building supervisor, the main contractor and subcontractors can ensure a safe working environment for workers at a construction site or project.

When do you have to draw up a Health and Safety Plan?

In the Netherlands, for construction projects that involve more employers working on the project, in many cases a Health & Safety Plan must be in place. You have to draw up a Health and Safety Plan (in Dutch) for:

• construction projects that take longer than 30 days to complete, and where at any given moment over 20 workers are at work at the same time
• construction projects that involve safety risks for the workers
• construction projects that must be reported to the Netherlands Labour Authority in advance

What is in a Health and Safety Plan?

A Health and Safety Plan lays down agreements with regard to health and safety. It must, for example, describe which party is responsible for safety in which phase of the project. The Health and Safety Plan must contain a risk assessment and evaluation(RI&E) of the planned project activities. Company emergency response measures are also part of the Health and Safety Plan.

When drawing up your Health and Safety Plan, you can use the (Dutch-language) Health and Safety Planner(V&G-Planner) as a template. For an overview of what a Health and Safety Plan for a construction project should contain, you can consult Article 2.28 of the Working Conditions Decree.