Display Screen Equipment: Regulations, Assessment and Occupational Health

Interaction of Bath's services

Alongside our core activities of safety case management, Human Factors Integration, workstation design and human reliability assessments, we provide comprehensive assessments of display screen equipment (DSE) workstations for a range of clients, including major high street banks.

Our strengths in this area include:

• Detailed and competitively priced assessments of workstations against the criteria in the UK Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, ISO9241 or any other client-specified DSE standards
• Clear reporting of any shortcomings in the workstation design, with cost-effective recommendations on remediation that take account of the DSE user's circumstances - for example, extant musculoskeletal injuries or the exact nature of the tasks being performed
• Short notice call-out contracts for DSE assessments

This article describes the UK regulations that apply to DSE and how InterAction of Bath can help employers satisfy them.

Display Screen Equipment in the Defence Sector

Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire might be said to have built the first computer in 1944. Called Colossus, it broke the code of the German encryption machine called the Lorenz cipher. A true computer, and in scale certainly living up to its name, it effectively used digital data - the binary code modern computers employ.

Now half a century on, computers, with their display screens and accoutrements - Display Screen Equipment - are used across a wide range of industries. In the defence sector, a large number of workers use DSE on a regular basis and for many this could be for eight hours each day

Our bodies are not designed for long periods of sedentary activity and it is important to mitigate the accompanying risks.

Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992

It is because of the burgeoning use of DSE at work that the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 were introduced. Coming into force in January 1993, with minor amendments in 2003, the Regulations have improved the safety of the work environment for those whose jobs involve significant use of DSE.

The Regulations cover a number of different aspects associated with DSE work, for improving performance, productivity and well being. The table below gives a summary of the Regulations.

Under the Regulations, managers and employers are held personally responsible for compliance. Most organisations comply with the Regulations only partly and fail to achieve the high standards of DSE that can result in a healthier and happier workforce. Yet compliance with the DSE Regulations is relatively inexpensive and certainly proves cost-effective.

Figure: DSE use needn't be frustrating

Scope of the Regulations

It is important for both employees and employers to understand who is and isn't covered by the Regulations, as there are so many different jobs, work environments and types of DSE.

Employees who use DSE on a regular basis for the purposes of job tasks set by the employer are within the scope of the Regulations. Employees are covered whether they are working in the employer's offices or at home. In general, workers who do not input or extract information by means of DSE need not be regarded as users or operators.

The Regulations cover both conventional display screens and display processes such as liquid crystal displays and other emerging technologies. DSE mainly used to display line drawings, graphs, charts or computer generated graphics is included, but DSE whose main use is to show TV or film pictures is not.

Ergonomics

Ergonomics applies the knowledge of human abilities and limitations to design and build for comfort, efficiency, productivity and safety. Ergonomics is a key issue in the Regulations. An ergonomic approach to assessing work task design and work organisation enables the DSE user to be at the centre of adjustments to their equipment and prevents them from adopting unsuitable postures.

Alongside this ergonomic approach, the Regulations encourage appropriate training and information for users and their employer. With greater understanding of appropriate and safe working environments, DSE users are more likely to eliminate problems before they manifest in injury.

DSE and Occupational Health

Health problems occur because of the way in which DSE is configured and used, rather than by the equipment design. Inappropriate mode of use of DSE can result in adverse posture, upper limb disorders (carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis etc), psychological stress and trip hazards (from cables, for example).

Most physical health problems associated with DSE use are strain injuries in the hands and wrists, neck and shoulders, and lower back. A range of factors contribute to injury, for example: poor positioning of the keyboard and mouse, inappropriate chair or adjustment to chair, incorrect dimensions for the desk, unsuitable position of the screen, unduly small text size on the screen.

Many people are familiar with the term repetitive strain injury. RSI is a condition brought about by performing the same activity repeatedly and it can occur in any repetitive task, particularly when the equipment configuration is not designed well. Colloquial terms abound: tennis elbow, writer's cramp, even game keeper's thumb. But the term RSI is medically imprecise and has been superseded by the term work related upper limb disorder (WRULD).

Common causes of neck and shoulder disorders through DSE use are: sitting at the wrong height, slouching, working with a screen at the wrong height, and entering data via the keyboard from documents that are lying flat on the desk. DSE users may be forced to adopt bad postures due to the unsuitability of their workstation.

Figure: Workstations should be assessed for compliance

Sitting in front of a computer all day is unfortunately not favourable to our spines. Good design of workstations and work organisation can control the risk of work-related spine trouble.

As technology plays an ever more prominent role in our daily lives, the subject of eye health and computer usage is becoming increasingly important. Although the use of DSE does not damage the eye, many DSE users suffer from eyestrain.

The term eyestrain covers a range of symptoms, including irritation, soreness, photosensitivity and general tiredness. The causes vary, but the most common are badly positioned equipment and documents, screen glare, inadequate lighting and screen flicker.

All these ailments can be avoided by due care in selection, configuration and maintenance of DSE. InterAction of Bath is pleased to provide such a service to the defence and civil sectors.

Quality Assurance

InterAction of Bath continually improves the quality of its services. We are certified to the quality standard ISO 9001:2000 and committed to our quality management system. We employ experienced and knowledgeable Human Factors professionals. Our reports are clear, concise, incisive, and peer reviewed.

Since 1997 InterAction of Bath has been a registered ergonomics consultancy with the Ergonomics Society and we are registered with the Defence Standards Helpdesk.