Employers are under a duty of care to protect their employees against the effects of working with vibrating tools by means of:

i) Warning employees that such tools can injure them.

ii) Undertaking regular health check ups.

iii) Ensuring that the tools used are safe, suitable and well maintained.

iv) Rotating the work if there is a risk of injury.

Where this has not been adhered to employees are at risk of developing Vibration White Finger (VWF) and Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS).

The symptoms of these include:

• loss of grip
• tingling and numbness in the fingers
• condition worsens in cold weather
• whitening of the ends of the fingers
• struggle to pick up small objects

Vibration of the hand held tools used can damage the nerve ends in the fingers and impair the blood circulation.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have been exposed to vibration at work.

The most common places where exposure is high are in the following industries:

• construction industry, road diggers
• foundry workers
• maintenance engineers
• steel erectors
• heavy engineering

Anyone using rotating, vibrating or percussive hand held power tools is at risk. Some of the more common ones are listed below

• jack hammers, pneumatic
  hammers & drills
• grinders
• hand held riveting and fettling tools
• chain saws

If any of the above relates to you or someone you know then contact us now for advice.