Display Screen Equipment

Every employer has a duty, so far as reasonably practicable, to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees. This duty extends to providing and maintaining plant and systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risk to health. Provision must also be made by an employer for such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees.

An employer is entitled to balance the risk to employees against the cost or sacrifice, in terms of time and effort, required in complying with these duties.

The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 require employers to be compliant if employees are not to be exposed to health risks.

Three main definitions apply :-

• Display screen equipment - an alphanumeric or graphic display screen, regardless of the display process involved.
• User - an employee who habitually uses display screen equipment as a significant part of his or her normal work
• Workstation - an assembly comprising
• Display screen equipment
• Any optional accessories to the display screen equipment
• Any disk drive, modem, printer, document holder, work chair, work desk, work surface or other item peripheral to the display screen equipment and
• The immediate environment around the display screen equipment

The main requirements of the Regulations are as follows :-

Analysis of work stations
A suitable and sufficient analysis of work stations used by employees should be performed by employers regardless of whether the employers themselves have provided those work stations. The analysis is to assess the health and safety risks to which those persons are exposed in consequence of that use.

Daily work routines
The activities of users at work shall be planned by the employer so that an employee's daily work routine is periodically interrupted by such breaks or changes of activity as will reduce his or her work load at that equipment.

Eye and Eyesight Tests
Employers are required to make provision on request for eye and eye sight tests for existing users and people who become users with such tests to be performed by a competent person (a registered Ophthalmic Optician or a Registered Medical Practitioner with suitable qualifications).

Provision of Training
Existing and new users of display screen equipment should receive adequate health and safety training in the use of any work station upon which they may be required to work.

Provision of Information
Users should be provided by employers with adequate information about all aspects of health and safety relating to their work stations.

Display Screen Equipment - Risk Analysis
Employers have a general duty to ensure that the use of the equipment must not be a source of risk for users and specific duties are laid down with regard to the display screen, keyboard, work desk or work surface and the work chair.

An employer undertaking a work station risk analysis must consider space requirements, lighting, reflections and glare, noise and heat emitted by equipment, radiation and humidity. Employers must consider the interface between the computer and the user with a view to reducing psychological stress arising from display screen equipment work.

Work Related Limb Disorders

Such disorders can affect the fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders and neck and are caused by repetitive strain. Conditions caused may include flexor tenosynovitis, carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow. Signs and symptoms may include local aching, swelling of muscles, tenderness and crepitis, (a grating sensation in the joint).

Measures to prevent such disorders include :-

• Improving the design of work stations and working areas with particular reference to the positioning of keyboards and screens and the height of chairs
• Adjustment of work loads which permit rest periods away from the screen
• Provision of wrist supports/bars
• Health surveillance to detect early stages of the disorder
• Improved training and supervision