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Introduction The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, which implement the European Union's Physical Agents (Noise) Directive within Great Britain, will come into force on 6 April 2006 and will bring significant changes to the actions required by employers and employees. There will be extra responsibilities for employers and noise exposures and level limits will be lowered. The inevitable consequence of this is that a great many businesses that were not covered by the previous regulations will come within the remit of the new ones. An outline of the regulations is given on the Regulations Summary page. Action Values and Limit Values The 2005 Regulations specify new exposure action values (EAVs) and exposure limit values(ELVs) for daily personal noise exposure and peak sound level. Daily personal noise exposure (LEP,d) represents the total noise received by an employee over the working day and is a function of both the noise level itself and the time the employee is exposed to it. High levels noise for a short time may give the same noise exposure as a lower level noise for a longer time. The new Regulations also allow for a weekly exposure, LEP,w to be used under certain circumstances and is calculated on the basis of a 40-hour week (five 8-hour days) instead of an 8-hour day. The Lower Exposure Action Values are The exposure action values relate to noise levels at the employee’s ear and do not take into account the effect of any hearing protection. The exposure limit values however, do take the effect of hearing protection into account. Exposure limit values must never be exceeded. In other words, the noise level must not be so high that the employee is exposed to unacceptable levels even when wearing hearing protection If this does happen the employer must identify the reason and take steps to ensure that it cannot happen again. Changes from previous regulations Many employers have focussed on the changes to the action levels as this is the most obvious difference between the 1989 and 2005 Regulations, but this misses the more subtle but extremely important changes in both the requirements of the regulations and the emphasis the HSE will put on certain aspects. In particular, the explicit requirement for health surveillance is a new requirement and the majority of employers whose staff are exposed to the UEAV will not be in a position to provide this in-house. Whilst audiometry, which is what will be required, is not especially expensive on an individual basis, costs will inevitably mount up for medium sized enterprises and they should seize the opportunity now to forge links with local suppliers of audiometric services. Experience has shown that one of the principle areas where businesses fail in terms of compliance with the 1989 Regulations is in training and informing their employees. The 2005 Regulations are very much more explicit in their requirement for proper training and dissemination of information, which leaves little room for excuses or halfhearted attempts to comply. It is absolutely essential that employees receive good quality training and proper information otherwise any hearing conservation programme is doomed from the start. 10dB Acoustics can provide properly structured training and education expressly designed to meet the requirements of the regulations and this can be carried out at your workplace. Just contact us for details. Finally, the 1989 Regulations contained a requirement (Regulation 7) for workplace noise exposure to be reduced as far as is reasonably practicable. It is fair to say - because we’ve seen countless examples in industries big and small - that this requirement has been largely ignored in the past. The official stance of the HSE in respect of the new Regulations is that this aspect sits at the very core of the system and it must be addressed properly by the development of Action Plans to progressively reduce noise levels in the workplace. It is not acceptable to simply dish out hearing protection to workers, because this should only be used as either an interim measure or to deal with the residual risks once levels have been reduced so far as is reasonably practicable. In order to comply with the requirement to control noise exposure other than by using hearing protection it is almost certain that employers will require specialist advice on what can be achieved and 10dB Acoustics are well placed to provide this service. |
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