Rank: Forum user 
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Happy Friday.
If i were to deem an employee worthy of requiring health surveillance for Noise Induced Hearing Loss, and the results showed above average hearing loss for their age, where would you stand on continuing the employees contract of employment if the area they worked in could potentially lead to further loss?
Does anyone have experience of this situation, in particular where an alternative lower risk job cannot be assigned?
Does it become a case of redundancy? Can you terminate an employees contract without a payout?
Going to look at potentially implementing health surveillance because a recent noise survey showed several employees had worked in noisy environments in previous jobs. We don't want to get the stick for it, and we don't want to make any potential loss worse.
The work area is not excessively noisy except for one area, which requires mandatory hearing protection though the machinery in it is automated and unmanned except for stopping and starting. The process is outdoors to further reduce damage. HSE have been down and seen our premises and very happy with how we carry out our work and the controls we have in place.
Thanks in advance,
Kralph
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Rank: Super forum user
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Kralph, the health surveillance in noise situations is only required if emissions are at the upper action level.
Also, if you have someone with an existing injury, they require more protection than others.
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Rank: Super forum user
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kralph
I am puzzled, if you have the correct controls in place why can the work induce hearing loss?
Brian
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Rank: Super forum user
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I dont see there is any reason not to continue employment, just ensure that suitable hearing protection is worn in areas where levels exceed 80/85. Include training on the effects of noise and the correct use of hearing protection (fitting of plugs for example) and repeat audiometry again next year.
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Rank: Forum user
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What bothers me is that one employee has said he has a mild 'buzzing' in his ears (not from us), a couple of others rated their hearing as 'fair', rather than 'excellent'.
What i don't want is our business to contribute further, or suffer for, any problems they may have.
I'll put it like this- aside from the afore mentioned 1 noisy area, a lot of the work area is exposed to intermittent background noise, we provide isolated work areas and PPE for other areas, when i work with the lads i always wear PPE when appropriate to set the example; we monitor PPE use, we record what PPE we issue and who it's issued to, we have signed induction forms including details on correct PPE use, relevant areas are signed with mandatory PPE use etc.. we make the effort to do things right. In spite of this there may be periods where they're exposed to background noise if they've taken it upon themselves to walk through the yard without their PPE or working without their PPE at times when we haven't been there to see it.
What i do not want, is the consequences of anyone with NIHL from another job being brought on us. I was proposing Surveillance as a monitoring tool to ensure that our work is not contributing further to it in spite of controls- and if it was, what would i do with the employee? There are no other 'quieter' jobs available, so what would we do? Make them redundant?
Am i being paranoid? Am i making sense?
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Rank: New forum user
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When you employ people are you asking them to complete a medical questionnaire & also give details of previous employment? This should initially flag up if individuals are likely to be bringing NIHL issues with them. We then undertake new starter medicals this benchmarks hearing issues - currently seeing a lot of early 20 somethings with Cat 2 NIHL due to I-pods etc & not work exposure. If you have then done everything reasonably practicable ie induction training including how to use hearing protection correctly and when to get replacements and clearly identified those areas where they must be wearing hearing protection then the individuals have a duty under S7 HASWetcA '74 to co-operate. If you identify individuals that are not then you must take action to enforce the PPE requirements we use a mix of employee improvement notices & formal disciplinary procedure - if you don't you are complicit in their negligence.
If you have all this in place and yet an individuals hearing is deteriorating I would suggest you either haven't got the correct level of attenuation with your hearing protection and it therefore needs to be reviewed or the NIHL is coming from an external source - a good Occ Health Provider should be able to identify this by asking questions re hobbies etc.
However if you really feel that it is the workplace that is causing the NIHL then you have a duty of care to the individual and if you cannot find them suitable alternative employment (check Equality legislation) then you may have no choice but to make them redundant with suitable renumeration.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I you were to dismiss somebody because you have contributed to their NIHL you would deserve all the storm of bad stuff that would come your way.
Fix the problem, remove the exposure and continue to monitor for future deterioration.
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Rank: Super forum user
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From the details you have provided the only area you may be weak is supervision. if you are having problems with people not following the rules it then becomes an HR issue. Whether or not to dismiss is their choice but repeated events without action are going to leave you wide open to a claim and, more importantly, allow the individuals hearing to deteriate.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Your playing catch-up here. All initial surveillance can do is establish a baseline. You're going to have to wait a 12 month to see what comes up then. Meantime, your other controls seem on the face of it to be OK.
Remember the first duty to eliminate though. Could these start/stop controls be moved further away from the noise source for example?
Dismissal on health grounds is a shaky plan, but then you've no evidence to suggest your controls aren't adequate. Remember too that hearing deterioration is some employees can be down to any number of non-work external issues.
Yes, you do owe those already at risk an increased duty of care, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you have to "do" more.
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