The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) most recent inspection campaign identified significant failings in workplace hearing protection, inspections found that three-quarters of noisy workplaces lacked essential knowledge to maintaining hearing protection equipment, as well as, uncovering issues with employee training and equipment management.
One in four workplaces had noise levels which require mandatory hearing protection, placing crucial responsibilities on employers to ensure proper provisions and management of protective equipment. However, inspections found gaps in the implementation of procedures.
At workplaces with high-noise levels, more than 75% of employees lacked essential knowledge about how best to store hearing protection, checking for damage, or reporting equipment faults to their employers. While 63% had not received guidance on how it is critical to wear protection continuously during exposure to harmful noise levels, it is stated under occupational health and safety regulations, when employees noise exposure reaches or exceeds 85 decibels, employers must provide appropriate hearing protection.
Training deficiencies were evident, with 80% of employees receiving no instruction on proper wearing techniques, which included: avoiding interference from hats and hoods, keeping hair clear of earmuffs and ensuring compatibility with other personal protective equipment.
95% of employers failed to verify whether workers could still detect vital warning signals, including fire alarms and vehicle reversing alerts, when wearing hearing protection.
Chris Steel, HSE’s Principal Specialist Inspector, said: “The gaps that we found in implementation are serious. They place an added risk to workers of excessive exposure to noise when they may believe they are being protected.
“If your defence against workplace noise is to give your workers hearing protection then you need to check that it works. How confident are you that the hearing protection you have supplied is in good order, is being worn when it should be, how it should be, and that it is not stopping your workers from hearing warning signals?”
To address these issues, HSE is promoting the CUFF checking system to help employers assess hearing protection effectiveness.
The acronym covers Condition (equipment integrity), Use (proper deployment when needed), Fit the ear (correct wearing), and Fit for purpose (appropriate specification).
Source: Health and Safety Exective (HSE)
How can we help?
We offer a wide range of professional Noise Risk Assessment and Monitoring services, from noise exposure monitoring to simple acoustic testing like a noise survey for a single machine, or a detailed factory, warehouse and workplace noise risk assessment.
Click here for more information on the services we provide or email us at
Contact Us