Information and training

Where employees are exposed to noise which is likely to be at or above a lower exposure action value, Regulation 10 requires the employer to provide those employees and their representatives with “suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training”.

This should include:

• the nature of risks from exposure to noise;

• the organisational and technical measures taken in order to comply with the requirements of Regulation 6;

• the exposure limit values and upper and lower exposure action values set out in Regulation 4;

• the significant findings of the risk assessment, including any measurements taken, with an explanation of those findings;

• the availability and provision of personal hearing protectors under Regulation 7 and correct use in accordance with Regulation 8(2);

• why and how to detect and report signs of hearing damage;

• the entitlement to health surveillance under Regulation 9 and its purposes;

• safe working practices to minimise exposure to noise; and

• the collective results of any health surveillance undertaken in accordance with Regulation 9 in a form calculated to prevent those results from being identified as relating to a particular person.

There are cases under earlier legislation. The Court of Appeal held that textile firms were liable under Section 29 of the Factory Act 1961 for damage to a worker’s hearing sustained from January 1978. The judge said that the employers should have measured the noise in their workshops from as early as 1973.

The judgment is significant because it held the textile companies responsible for hearing loss due to noise at lower levels than those generally recognised as giving rise to liability (Baker v Quantum Clothing Group and others [2009] EWCA Civ 499).