Outdoor workers respond to sun safety tips

Construction workers who attended a talk on sun safety said it had prompted them to make changes to how they approach skin care for themselves and their colleagues.

The talk hosted by the Guernsey Occupational Safety and Health Association aimed to highlight the islands high levels of skin cancer.

Dozens of industry workers attended the talk on Thursday at La Villette Hotel where strategic screening lead for Public Health, Diane Matthews gave advice for reducing risks.

Lance Vaudin, managing director of Vaudin Stone Masons, said it was difficult to encourage skin protection as it was "not an immediate risk" but he "learnt so much" from the talk and would be more vigilant.

Vaudin said: "Being stonemasons we're pretty much outside all the time.

"We've looked at it for many years and now we've asked our staff to cover up. Staff do use sun cream, they do have hats and things like that.

"It's very difficult, it's not an immediate risk, it's not as though you're going to fall off scaffolding or something's going to fall on you, it's a long term.

"I've learnt so much, I think now I'm going to be a bit more vigilant."

Contracts manager for Ravenscroft Construction Stuart Austin said skin cancer was an issue and the company already offered its staff sun cream.

"They've got to wear their hats and I think we're going to look into some neck capes and other precautions and offer them places of shade as well," he said.

"As we've just learnt we've got twice the skin cancer rates, so it's something that needs to be done."

Matthews said it was important to provide information on the risks and allow companies to "react to it in their own way".

"They are the experts in health and safety, they're the experts on avoiding risk and it'll be down to them to use this knowledge of what our health picture looks like of skin cancer on the island and take that further," she said.

"I'm hoping that they have learned something about the statistics because I think not everyone's aware that our skin cancer rates are so incredibly high - double what we're seeing in England."

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