Absolute Health and Safety Solutions Ltd

If you were already complying with the old 1989 Regulations you must be aware of the main changes that will affect your current operations.

The New Regulations require employers to:
- assess the risks to your employees from noise at work;
take action to reduce the noise exposure that produces those risks;
- provide your employees with hearing protection if you cannot reduce the noise exposure enough by using other methods;
- make sure the legal limits on noise exposure are not exceeded;
provide your employees with information, instruction and training;
- carry out health surveillance where there is a risk to health.
The Regulations do not apply to:
- members of the public exposed to noise from their non-work activities, or making an informed choice to go to noisy places;
- low-level noise which is a nuisance but causes no risk of hearing damage.

The Bracknell Forest Council provide a free leaflet to assist with non work related noise as do most Local Authorities, noisy neighbours, fireworks, loud music, barking dogs etc.

Hearing loss will be very significant in the future as it is today in industry, employers now have an obligation to reduce the noise in the workplace even further, but spare a thought of other ways that noise can damage your ears; iPOD’s are the latest craze, why go to noisy concerts when you can place a concert exceeding 80db directly into your ear.

The inner ear has millions of tiny hairs that transmit impulses to the brains, similar to a cornfield in a light wind…blowing back and forth…if these hairs are destroyed or knocked over permanent damage then occurs, just like a massive crop circle hitting the corn field, the hairs can not transmit the impulses and you start to go deaf.

So a message to employers, when you carry out assessments of noise within the workplace take into account the wearing of iPOD’s, Walkmans, CD Players etc under ear protection - any noise assessments undertaken won't register this level of noise, but if your noises in your workplace exceed the regulated limit, you could be held accountable for noise induced deafness as a compensation claim if the wearing of these pieces of equipment are not included at the time of the assessment. Also if the employer does not implement any controls to prevent any possible damage - the easy option is to ban them in the work place or implement methods of disclaimers.

Parents and employers be advised that besides early signs of deafness from the use of iPOD’s and other similar devices, it will next be upper limb disorders such as an RSI related ailment because of the amount of text messages and the speed that they type them on their mobile telephones.

Further information can be obtained from the HSE website dealing with Noise

More details of how the ear works can be easily found on the web