Noise risk assessment contents

The Noise Regs require an employer to have a noise risk assessment in place and a noise assessment forms part of that, indeed it is the majority of it.

Remember:

• A noise assessment (or noise survey) is the act of measuring the noise exposure levels, identifying who is at risk, identifying some possible measures to reduce noise, identifying who needs hearing protection, training and hearing testing, and specifying the strength of the hearing protection.

• A noise risk assessment is that plus what you are actually planning to do about it. So when you last did a noise assessment and will next do it, how you actually manage PPE, who manages the hearing testing, any critical findings from the health surveillance, how you manage training, etc.

Fear not though as a noise risk assessment is not very complex and is basically just a bit of admin, creating one document which references all the various bits of noise safety such as the noise assessment’s findings, noise training, hearing testing, PPE, etc., and pulls it all into one document. Your noise assessment and health surveillance records (if you do it) forms the vast bulk of the work.

IMPORTANT: You do not need to write everything out again so no need to spend time rewriting all the noise exposure levels again - just refer back to the noise report I did for you and say all the info is there. A noise risk assessment really is a simple management document referencing everything else.

The noise risk assessment itself is a simple thing, a couple of pages at most, don’t let it run away with you.