Posted By Sharon
Morning all,

does anyone know of a good supplier of ergonomic office chairs. Im looking for a company who will come on site and assess the requirements of the employees needs.

Ideally the Lancashire area.

Posted By Bob Youel

Be careful as whoever assesses needs must be competent re ergonomics not just be a chair sales person

We ergonomicially assess the needs then get specialist chair suppliers in to accomodate the needs identified - This day and age suppliers are usually very good however they are not usually ergonomists

Posted By Sharon
Tabs - I have received no email.

Bob - Hence my initial post.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan
As a safety ergonomist, I'd endorse Bob Youel's observations.

At the same time, you can choose a really good range of ergonomically well-designed chairs from the Orangebox, Herman Miller and Advanced Chair Design brands.

If you phone their offices, you may get the best possible options: a range of recommendations of adaptable chairs from ergonomically-trained staff

Posted By Kieran J Duignan
Sharon

Muscular-skeletal injuries can turn out 'odd' as well as intensely painful for the individual.

Having read case files as an expert witness (safety ergonomist), I'd suggest that you may be wasting your time pressing to see the medical files unless you are qualified as a rheumatologist or orthopaedic specialist.

If the issue concerns 'need for an ergonomic chair', establish as well as you can what the assessment underlying this is. While it appears self-evident, it's actually open to dispute depending on the definition of 'need' and 'ergonomic': in my experience, other professions imagine ergonomics to be a very different discipline than those formally qualified as ergonomists do.

In a nutshell, Sharon, a case of this kind can be very demanding for all concerned for the basic reason that medical science has not yet figured out how to prevent musculo-skeletal injuries or, in some cases, how to alleviate or remedy them.

Posted By M P
In 'difficult' cases, i tend to try to get the person to ask their consultant for his views as to chair requirements. This only works if they are seeing one fairly regularly, and i get variable response. Some ask a fee, but in one or two cases i have been given a detailed spec for the chair required. Difficulty sometimes is matching this to an actual chair.
Alternatively, i've always found Posturite good, and they will send out a trained OH person to do an assessment for free, with no obligation, but their chairs are arguably somewhat pricey.
For lower back issues most good quality chairs, especially if they have a 'lumbar pump' seem to work, but if its upper back or neck, its more difficult, and i tend to revert to consultant or OH specialists, and check the whole workplace set-up as well (screen height etc)