Hear this – before it is too late
Once it was those working in heavy industry most likely to be regularly exposed to noise capable of blighting their lives with hearing loss, tinnitus or other hearing damage. Times change. Sectors like construction, engineering, factories, heavy industry, should have this covered off today – at least those pursuing best-practice and paying attention to the law (see fact box). But those who know about these things will tell you far more of us are at risk of harm to our hearing – and the related consequences (think future litigation, if you are a business) – than ever before. Our modern lifestyle – in particular, the inability to go anywhere without our ears plugged into our mobile phones – is widely considered to be storing up a wave of ear trouble. Couple that with earphones at work, cafes, shops, bars playing loud music continually, and you have just part of a continuous assault on our eardrums – in and out of work. A key bone of contention when the threatened tsunami emerges will be who is to blame? How will you know the damage a former worker wants to take you to court about was not a result of their own decision to consume heavy volume helpings of Spotify? How will you protect your organisation? “TheWorld Health Organisation (WHO) has said nearly half of young people aged 12-35 in well-off countries listen to unsafe levels of sound through portable
music players and smart phones,” said Tom Parker, the Gloucestershire-based director of WorkScreen, which provides a new kind of hearing test equipment for the
workplace. “That’s over a billion people” Such tidal waves have happened before.
In the early noughties, hundreds of former workers at the Cowley car plant came forward with hearing loss. BMW was left facing a bill in excess of £15 million. It wasn’t even the owner when the former staff worked at the car factory. But BMW was still liable in law. “The modern coffee shop is interesting. If you are sticking your staff in an environment where there is continuous music, chatter and your baristas are banging out coffee grains, then we don’t really know what the long-term effects will be. “And although employers have to take action at 85dB, in reality the safe level may actually be just 70dB, according to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in the USA.” According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive for 70dB think ‘primary school classroom’. If you are too old to recall what that’s like, think ‘loud radio’. Mr Parker should know a thing or two about our ability to monitor and detect hearing loss. “I have been in ears and hearing sector for 15 years now. My last role was managing director of the UK’s oldest supplier of audiology and hearing test equipment to the NHS and the private sector.” Towards the end of his corporate career, he was introduced to new technology developed by Somerset
6 | July 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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