Posted By Patrick Teyhan Colleagues, Our employer has replaced our ageing Computers with handsome (and what must be said quicker)Flat Screen Displays and new compact (in comparison with the old) CPU's. The issue has been raised as to the Requirement of the DSE Regulations and revision of existing Assessments. It has been suggested that "Self Assessment" would be adequate, in that the completed self assessment would be audited by a competent assessor who would decide if follow up action is required. Whilst I am concerned about self assessment in itself, i.e. staff indicating that their working environment is ok, but when visited the actual situation is found to be somewhat different. So I am asking for your help / guidance on twoish issues I understand from section 2 DSE Regs that the employer is to perform a "suitable and sufficient assessement / analysis of Workstations provided does this still apply in our case? I believe so, your thoughts / comments / interpretation would be most welcome. I further understand from Section 2 of the DSE Regs that a "suitable training" is required when a workstation has been substantially modified. With the introduction of the new technology, would every workstation have to be revisited and assessed a new? Your thoughts / comments please. Would providing training in the use / adjustment of the new technology and then having a competent 1-2-1 Risk Assessment for 600+ members of staff be "reasonably practicable"? Is this common practise in the outside world? Would doing any less mean that my employer falls foul of the DSE Regs and find themselves Liable for compensation claims for RSI WRULD and CTD My many thanks in anticipation of your help Regards Patrick

Posted By Dave Daniel The length of time you spend on risk assessment should be commmensurate with the risk. In my 11 years as Group Safety Adviser for Rover, then with 60,000 employees and I suppose 2-3,000 workstations in the end (some quite old) we had no reported cases of RSI, although we had known problems with some manufacturing processes such as sheet metal working and sewing rooms. We had some heavy systems use including data entry operators through to CAD. The only recorded incident was someone dropping one on his foot! We concluded that self assessment was entirely adequate and we could then concentrate our efforts on "real" risks, like our Iron foundries. Dave Daniel Technical Director Practical Risk Management Ltd

Posted By Sylvia Tyler Self assessment is not the answer to compliance with the regulations, but it can help you to prioritise the time you need to spend on it and hopefully educate employees and Managers to do it themselves! I have introduced an interactive self-assessment just this week, a few people have non-compliances. I've e-mailed or telephoned them and sorted the problems out - or discovered that they had no problems just didn't read the questions properly!! The good things about the interactive package is there is a training module on DSE that has a "Knowledge Test" so this demonstrates that you have provided the information and training on DSE, without spending the many hours standing in front or the employees, which is part way towards compliance. I'm hoping that with the introduction of this system I can coach and educate the Line Managers and the employees by getting them involved with the problems and understanding that they have a responsiblity to use the equipment properly, set up the workstation properly, manage the users, identify the users and identify if they need additional breaks or work pattern changes. Thus leaving me more time to concentrate on the "High" Risk Activities in the construction world. Tried to get some Line Managers trained up in DSE assessment - but that failed.

Posted By Kevin Walker I feel that the key aspect in any DSE program is awareness and training. If people are trained on what they should be doing then you have started to them being more self sufficent and capable of making local adjustments. We do not want to get into the "nanny" situation whereby people cannot even adjust their own chair without someone from health and safety being called to help them. It is the progession to this stage of DSE assessment overkill that leads to helpless people unable to figure it out for themselves. I find the easiest way is to train as many staff as possible to do their own assessments so that they are almost DSE assessor themselves. This does not need to be via the hugely expensive and long assessor training courses but with simple short and accurate training. In this way they are more capable of looking after themselves and let you do the real stuff. kevin