Posted By Tim Can I ask what peoples interpretation of regularly exposed means, i.e how often. I am looking into noise exposure/assessments for the purpose of health surveillance. In particular the following stated in the guidance. "you should therefore provide health surveillance to workers regularly exposed above the upper exposure action values" Thanks

Posted By Tim Thanks Glynn, I am interested how its interpreted for the noise regs.

Posted By Tim Glyn, Thanks again, the assessments have been done, but there is occassional exposure to some items that are taking people above the upper exposure action value. I am hoping to get peoples interpretation on what they consider to be "regularly exposed" i.e once a week or more, three times a week, more than twice a month etc Regards

Posted By Tim Thanks Alan, You've hit the nail on the head with your statement, this is the issue I am looking to get opinions on.

Posted By Chris Jerman Tim, remember that in your quote of the guidance, you say that "you should provide..." not that you MUST provide. I would suggest that SHOULD combined with an interpretation of REGULARLY give quite some latitude for decision making. Clearly if the noise levels are above the max, then even if periodically in that environment, the employee MUST be wearing hearing protection therefore isn't actually exposed at all. My view is that HS (on hearing) is not to test whether your programme of protection is working, but that employees are not suffering loss from another source that isn't related to their employment with you. If there are people who visit an area sporadically AND wear protection, the potential for any loss being attributed to you is very small. They'd have to prove that it was significant exposure. If regular means that they are there sufficient that if their protection failed or was inadequate such that they'd potentially suffer loss, I would include them in the HS as I would the other employees who are based in that environment to prove that any loss wasn't of your causing. In short, everyone has to be adequately protected, but your decision to include them in HS needs to be based on your assessment of a) their potential to suffer loss elsewhere and b) the potential for you NOT to be able to prove that you didn't cause it. 'Occasional' exposure to noise below peak level would not be sufficient proof, in my view, to satisfy the 'balance of probability'. The difficulty is monitoring and recording this individual's history. It's basically about how openly robust you other controls are. If you asked 12 employees (a worker's jury) at random about noise control - what would they say? I know that you asked what regularly means, but there is no answer to that. Leap years are regular as are ice ages and London buses. Frequent has a different meaning though. I would suggest that the spirit of 'regular' would mean 'frequent and significant' Chris

Posted By Tabs I agree with Tim. Regular means predictable, not frequent. You should look to make sure that your employees are not exposed to those levels if you can - if you can't then you should add surveillance. The cost of prevention needs to be disproportionate to allow you to ignore it. Anything below disproportionate should be done. Provision of hearing defenders limits exposure if they are worn. Enclosure (dampening) of the noise is far more reliable - and hence higher in the hierarchy of protection.