Occupational Health, Safety and Hygiene

Noise, vibration and COSHH site assessments can be provided to your organisation to help meet your occupational health and safety duties. If you require any of the services detailed below, one of our health and safety consultants will be happy to help.

Noise risk assessments
(Conducted using Type 2 Integrating SL Meters).

Our assessments include plant surveys, personal exposures (dosimetry and LAE’q conversion), and action level assessments.

We will also provide professional risk assessment reports detailing methodology, findings and recommendations to allow legal compliance.

Each client appointing us to conduct a noise risk assessment shall receive a free hearing protection assessment via the performance of an octave band analysis.

Hand-arm vibration assessments.

Such assessments will soon be required in compliance with the amended Physical Agents Directive.

COSHH risk assessments.

Employers are required under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1999 to assess and control the risks to employees from the wide range of potentially harmful substances encountered in the workplace.

We offer a wide range of COSHH assessments including TID (total inhalable dust) and TRD (total respirable dust), crystalline silica, as well as general workplace COSHH surveys.

Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.

As of 5th April 2006, new regulations came into force regarding the control of noise (Regulations were first written in 2005).

These regulations cover noisy powered tools or machinery, anything that uses an explosive charge and noise impacts such as drop forging/hammering.

The main legal duties that any employer would need to perform are:

1. Carry out a risk assessment on your employees exposure to noise at work.
2. If noise is at dangerous levels for employees, you should take action to reduce noise exposure at it’s source.
3. If it cannot be reduced significantly at source, protective hearing equipment should be provided.
4. Noise levels should always be kept below the legal limits.
5. All employees should be given information and training on why noise levels are dangerous and what they should be doing to protect themselves.
6. Any area that is a potential risk to employees should be regularly monitored.

Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005.

As of 6 July 2005, new regulations came into force regarding the control of harmful vibrations at work.

These regulations cover hand-arm vibration when frequently using such things as hand-held power tools, hand guided power equipment and other machines that process hand-held materials.

The main legal duties that any employer would need to perform are:

1. Carry out a risk assessment for employees that are exposed to vibration
2. If employees are above the daily Exposure Action Value (EAV), the employer must take action by bringing in a programme to reduce risk and perform health checks on employees.
3. If employees are above the daily Exposure Limit Value (ELV), the employer must bring the exposure down to a level below this limit.
4. Employees must be kept informed at all times of what actions an organisation is taking to reduce risk.
5. Consultation with any unions or representatives for the employees must be sought by the employer on any policies established.
6. All actions regarding risk assessment and control should be properly documented for inspection.
7. A procedure to regularly review your safety policies should be put in place.