The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a campaign urging employers not to wait until hearing or vibration damage has already occurred. The launch coincides with Bone and Joint Health Week and targets two often underestimated risks: exposure to noise and exposure to vibration from hand tools and machinery.
What are the risks of noise and vibration?
According to HSE, around 15,000 workers in the UK develop hearing problems caused or made worse by their job every year. The regulator estimates that about one in five workers is exposed to harmful noise levels. Prolonged or excessive noise exposure can cause permanent hearing loss and tinnitus. Vibration from hand tools and machinery poses a second risk: it can cause hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) and carpal tunnel syndrome, conditions involving numbness, tingling, pain and reduced grip strength.
Chris Steel, HSE’s principal specialist inspector for noise and vibration, stresses that these health problems are preventable, but that the consequences can last a lifetime. According to HSE, workers often notice symptoms only late, by which point some of the damage may already be irreversible. Steel says employers should therefore not wait for symptoms to appear.
What does HSE expect from employers?
The campaign summarises the expected approach in three steps: assess, control and protect. Employers must first identify who is exposed to noise or vibration and carry out an appropriate risk assessment. They must then reduce exposure at source, for example by using quieter or lower-vibration equipment, maintaining machinery properly and applying safer working methods. Where risks remain, employers must provide suitable hearing protection, arrange health surveillance where required, and give workers information, instruction and training.
These obligations stem from the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 and the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005, the UK regulations that legally require employers to assess and limit these risks. HSE also points to the HAVS Risk Reduction Pledge, part of its own Prevention Programme, through which organisations voluntarily commit to reducing vibration-related health problems. Employers can sign this pledge via the Council for Work and Health. Campaign materials are available through HSE’s Work Right campaign.
Context (EN)
Exposure to harmful noise in the workplace is not just a UK problem. Figures from the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), based on 2023 data, show that around 16 percent of all workers in the United States (about 27 million people) were exposed to hazardous noise in the previous year, and that around 11 percent of all workers have hearing problems. Earlier NIOSH research also found that 53 percent of exposed workers report not wearing hearing protection. Within the European Union, Directive 2003/10/EC similarly requires employers to assess and limit noise risks, setting defined action and limit values for noise exposure. In the UK, the EU and the US alike, work-related hearing damage is thus a recognised risk.
Source: Noise and vibration: HSE warns employers not to wait until the damage is done, 13 October 2026
Additional research: CDC/NIOSH, Occupational Hearing Loss Surveillance (Overall Statistics, updated April 2026), EU Directive 2003/10/EC on exposure to noise
