Izzy was joined on the show by Gary Staines, managing director, GSQ Brickwork and health and safety consultant Chris Tidy.

Staines said: “We currently have 20 live sites and they vary from smaller one builds to high rise with probably 50 plus people on one site and so, it’s a bit of a mixture.

There has been massive changes in health and safety since I first started in the mid 80s to what it is now. Back then as bricklayers, we were using very basic scaffolding, we had no forklifts and PPE I don’t think it was even invented and thankfully, we have come a long way in a short time to be fair. Now, it’s become a norm for everyone on site to wear a hard hat, high-visibility, safety shoes, and safety uniforms. Sometimes it’s been a battle to get people to wear the most common PPE on-site but truly, it’s a given now and it has helped to prevent a lot of the most basic accidents.

“The health and safety is valued as it should now and a lot of people won’t push against it as they once did when we started in the 80s. Even now bricklayers still argue that am at the highest point so why should I wear a hard hat or high-vis? One rule that I always say from a health and safety perspective is wear a hard hat throughout when you are on site whether you are working below the scaffolding or somewhere else on site for the benefit of all to be fair.

Staines pointed out that the company always provides PPE when and where it’s needed. “For example, gloves are always talked about nowadays in bricklaying and at a lot of sites people have been talking about cut resistance gloves to protect people from cuts while working on sites.”

Tidy said: “Hard Hat Awareness Week was introduced to drive awareness of brain injury through activities designed to encourage best practice around safety equipment. We though it was very important because the impact of something like a brain injury can be very life changing. We wanted to inform people and we know a lot of people do wear hard hats but we wanted to educate people on the why there is need for them to wear hard hats. It was important to educate people on how hard hats work, how to store and maintain them.

“A lot of fatalities in the construction industry are as a result of a fall from height and as a bricklayer you should be aware of that and check the scaffolding, maintenance of the scaffolding and most importantly weather tracking and nowadays that can change too quickly and you ought to be aware of that.