In the UK, there are 2 million people at risk of developing hand arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) and currently 300,000 people that are suffering from advanced stages.
What is HAVS?
Hand arm vibration syndrome is caused by over exposure to vibration through a worker’s hands and arms, for example, using powered hand tools for an extended length of time.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms can include tingling and numbness in the fingers, loss of strength in the hands and fingers turning white. In some cases, it can result in disability or carpal tunnel syndrome.
The symptoms can take time to become evident and once symptoms have appeared there is no treatment to reverse the damage. The impact on the quality of life of sufferers can be extreme and day to day activities such as holding a glass or fastening a zip can become difficult.
Approximately 10% of workers that are exposed at the Exposure Action Value (EAV) which is considered to be a safe level, will get hand arm vibration syndrome within 12 years.
Some workers that have been exposed to HAVS often have to change jobs or stop work entirely.
Since legislation came into force in 2005, technology has become available to enable managers to protect their workers by providing a heightened but practical real time risk assessment.
More accurate tools use tracking and real time vibration exposure improves the visibility of worker’s exposure to vibration. By providing representative risk data for individuals, an employer can implement controls to reduce the employees risk.
What the law says
The vibration regulations require employers to:
- Make sure that risks from vibration are controlled.
- Provide information, instruction and information to employees on the risk and the actions being taken to control risk.
Employers duties are to reduce the risks from vibration to the lowest level reasonably practicable if it is above the exposure action value (EAV).
There are also requirements for manufacturers and suppliers of equipment to ensure that equipment is supplied with the lowest practicably obtainable values.
Further advice
For brief guide from the HSE for hand-arm vibration at work can be found here.