Hi I hope someone could give me some advice here? Occasionally we employ agency workers for horticulture tasks i.e. grounds maintenance which include mowing, strimming, hedge cutting etc. Obviously they are exposed to numerous risks and we provide very good training, ppe, supervision etc. With our own full time work force with have a health surveillance program in place to look for symptoms of HAVS and other conditions which may be caused or exacerbated by the use of tools emitting vibration. Therefore, the question that I have is are we legally required to do the same for temporary/agency workers. Morally, I believe we should but I need to understand the H&S requirements.

Refer to the Agency/temporary workers webage on the HSE website:-

http://www.hse.gov.uk/to...ox/workers/temporary.htm

If its just HAVS that is being tested for Occ Health and nothing else - I would consider this a risk management question, for example what is the likelihood that an agency worker would contract HAVS from your work activity and what is the likelihood that they may try to sue you.

If your full time workers are not showing any signs of HAVS through surveillance and you have good management controls of your equipment and controlled exposure times, then you may decide not to test the agency workers.

On another note, its possible that your agency workers would be working with another employer that may not have good controls - if the test from the agency worker uncovers a concern for example vibration white finger what action would you take?

great question and great answers

I have been asking this question of the HSE for many years and whilst they have not answered the question to my liking they have said that the employer is responsible e.g. agency and 'technically' the client can be held liable and should treat such workers where they control them as their own - this implies that HAVS and all other areas should be managed properly by the host employer

That said the costs of occupational health cover for such staff hinders progress as far as business is concerned as the main reason for laying off employees and then using agencies is low cost and where agencies have tried to do the right thing they have lost work as doing the right thing raises costs - only yesterday one agency I know lost a long term contract because of this very point!!!!

as already stated by Canopener A: "If your full time workers are not showing any signs of HAVS through surveillance and you have GOOD management controls of your equipment and controlled exposure times, then you may decide not to test the agency workers". B: "On another note, its possible that your agency workers would be working with another employer that may not have good controls - if the test from the agency worker uncovers a concern for example vibration white finger what action would you take?"

This has been a big problem in the radiation field where staff move around and has been solved by having a central data base so all doses are recorded and new employers take over as the employee works for them. That said this will not happen in general industry

There are two routes to go down as far as I am concerned
A: Treat staff as employees - This is the proper way in my view but it can be costly and possibly expose the company in the future as if U are the only company undertaking exposure control as U should do the worker will remember this as U will stand out from the crowd in their work history

It would be almost impossible for an agency to manage such things on a daily basis so the controller would have to do that

B: Take a chance as all others appear to be doing as it will be near impossible for a worker to get recompense at a future date even if they knew that they have a problem and that they were exposed and the HSE under its current remit is unlikely to act

B is a poor way of working but unfortunately that is a way of business in the UK at this time


I would address this point with your MD and the company finance officer giving them all the facts etc. and see how it goes thereafter you have done all that U can,

NB:I have also addressed the point of health surveillance re volunteers with the HSE where volunteers are being used where employees have been laid off


Best of luck

Canopener is correct in that the information I have said in my post may be misleading. 'There is a glaring and obvious flaw in that approach' please accept my apologies - upon reflection I should have made my post clear.

I guess what I was trying to say is that there are many approaches to manage the risks associated with HAVS, health surveillance is not exactly a risk base approach, it generally serves as a reactive approach and can give an indication if your existing control measures are working or not. What I was trying to say is that if you have lots of good controls in place and through health surveillance it appears that your controls are working, this information could be used in your decision making. If all is good with your employed staff because HAVS is appropriately managed why would it not also be the same with agency staff.

However, John's recent post and the presentation from the IOSH website makes interesting reading.