Hand Arm Vibration (HAVS) is Still an Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Priority. The HSE focus on areas where they feel employees are most at risk of injury.

Hand Arm Vibration is still clearly a concern to the HSE, an indication that companies are not quite there yet in getting this issue under control.

If we look at the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, we have effective PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) in the form of hearing protection, and although this is only ever supposed to be used as a last resort, at least it works and is very effective at reducing the risk of injury.

Hand Arm Vibration has no effective PPE, so the only way to manage the risk is to reduce the exposure at source, either by reducing the amount of vibration or the time of exposure. Both of which bring their own challenges.

Until employers can confidently quantify the risk with measurement, identify those exposed, employ control measures where appropriate and mitigate for possible injury, we are likely to see HAVS as an HSE priority for some time to come.

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