Consultation on new vibration regulations

HSC press release C064:03 - 17 November 2003

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has today published two consultative documents on proposed new regulations and guidance implementing the European Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive.

Hand-arm vibration is a major cause of occupational ill-health. Around 3,000 new claims for Industrial Injury Disability Benefit are made each year in relation to vibration white finger. The Courts have also awarded large sums of compensation for the disease in recent years including an estimated £3 billion for 165,000 ex-miners, and most recently £212,000 for a railway employee.

The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations will require employers to take action to prevent their employees from developing diseases caused by exposure to vibration at work from equipment, vehicles and machines.

Two distinct types of vibration hazard are covered by the proposed Regulations:-

• Hand-arm vibration affects people who use hand-held or hand-guided power tools and those workers holding materials that vibrate when fed into machines. Long-term exposure to high levels of hand-arm vibration can lead to a range of disabling conditions including vibration white finger, permanent loss of feeling in the fingers and painful joints in the hands, wrists and arms.
• Whole-body vibration occurs when people are sitting or standing on industrial machines or moving vehicles which transmit vibration and shocks into the operator. Long-term exposure to high levels of whole-body vibration is associated with low back pain.

The proposed Regulations will specify daily levels of vibration exposure where employers will be required to take action to control risks (the exposure action values); and where they must prevent further daily exposure (the exposure limit values).

The Regulations must come into force by July 2005 to implement the European Directive on time. UK negotiators played a significant role in developing a much more practicable Directive than was originally proposed. In particular:-

• The original proposal included a whole-body vibration exposure limit value which would have placed severe restrictions on industry. The UK negotiated a substantial increase in the exposure limit value to a more acceptable and workable level. HSE is working with industry to collect more data on whole-body vibration levels but initial indications are that most agricultural and industrial work activities should be able to comply with the exposure limit value.
• The UK also negotiated a transitional period for the exposure limit values up to 2010 (with a further four years to 2014 for the agriculture and forestry sectors), for work activities where older machinery may be an obstacle to compliance.
• The UK also insisted on an option for averaging exposure over a week to allow high exposure on one or two days to be offset by low exposure on others.

Substantial HSE guidance on the Regulations is also being put out for consultation. Much of the guidance reiterates messages in HSE's existing publications and stresses the importance of simple, common sense control measures to reduce exposure.

HSC Chair, Bill Callaghan, said: "We believe that the proposed Regulations and accompanying guidance will provide a practicable and effective framework for eliminating vibration-related diseases. We have set out in the Consultative Documents some important questions on what the Regulations and guidance say. We want to get this right and are keen to hear what employers, unions and others think. I hope people in the many industries affected by vibration will let us have their views on these proposals."

There are two separate Consultative Documents as the two forms of vibration affect distinctly different work activities. People are invited to comment by the closing date of March 31st 2004.

The documents, Proposals for new Control of Vibration at Work Regulations implementing the Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive (2002/44/EC) Hand-arm Vibration (ref no CD190) and, Proposals for new Control of Vibration at Work Regulations implementing the Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive (2002/44/EC) Whole-body vibration (ref no CD191), are available on HSE's website www.hse.gov.uk/consult/index.htm

Notes for editors

1. It is estimated that around five million people are exposed to hand arm vibration with some two million being exposed at levels where there are clear risks of developing disease. Contract Research Report 232/1999 Hand-transmitted vibration: Occupational exposures and their health effects in Great Britain by Medical Research Council Environmental Epidemiology Unit and the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, claims around 800,000 people in Britain had some symptoms of vibration white finger, and in 300,000 of these the symptoms were advanced.

2. Exposure to hand arm vibration occurs in many industries, particularly where the use of power tools is extensive, e.g. construction/demolition, mining, quarrying, forestry, shipbuilding/repair, motor vehicle manufacture and repair, foundries, public utilities (gas, electric, telecoms, water), railways and aircraft manufacture.

3. Whole-body vibration is found in a wide range of vehicles and industrial machines and it is estimated that around nine million people are exposed to it at work. However, the risk of back pain from exposure to whole-body vibration is believed to be greatest from operating off-road vehicles used in agriculture, construction, mining and quarrying. Most road-going vehicles are not likely to cause high enough levels of whole-body vibration to cause a risk.

4. The link between long term exposure to high levels of whole-body vibration and back pain is generally supported by research, although a dose/effect relationship has not yet been established. The Consultative Document 191 contains an appraisal of the main scientific evidence on page 157.

5. Backpain is the leading cause of sickness absence from work in the UK. It is estimated that in 1995, 10 million working days were lost because of back pain. The cost to the NHS of treating back pain has been estimated at £481 million and the overall cost to industry has been estimated at £5 billion according to the evaluation report Back in Work CRR 441/2002.

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