When to repeat a noise assessment

A noise assessment does need to be reviewed and then redone / repeated sometimes, but you don’t always have to get someone in to do that for you.

HSE’s law and guidance on repeating a noise assessment

The HSE have law covering this, and then also explanatory guidance. This is what the law actually says:

Extract from L108: What the law says about repeating a noise assessment

Their guidance then expands on that and says:

Extract from L108: HSE's guidance on when to repeat or review a noise assessment.

My recommendations on repeating a noise assessment

I think it is helpful to break it down into ‘review’ and ‘repeat’.

Reviewing a noise assessment

This is the more frequent one and I think this can usually be done in-house. Every year, have a look at the workplace in light of the guidance points above, and see if anything has changed. For example:

• Are there new machines?

• Has the layout of the machines been changed as that can impact on noise?

• Have the runtimes of the machines changed?

• Have shifts changed and people are maybe working a longer shift or doing more overtime?

• Are there any audible differences?

• Are your hearing tests showing a potential problem with a lot of people ‘failing’?

If all the answers are ‘no’, then that is your review of the noise assessment done.

If answers are ‘yes’ then you should get a new noise assessment done.

Important: Document that you did it, even if just in notes or minutes somewhere. If asked you can then show that on a certain date it was done and you considered there to be no changes and that the existing noise assessment is accurate.

Repeating a noise assessment

Every so often a noise assessment should be done from scratch again as there are always slight changes which creep in. For example, motors making more noise, bearings wearing, air lines starting to leak a little, panels working loose, etc. Often the annual noise assessment review misses these so a less frequent repeat of the entire noise assessment will catch that.

In my noise assessments I give a broad rating for how dangerous the noise risk is on the site, being low, medium or high.

• For sites identified as low risk I recommend repeating the noise assessment every four years.

• For sites identified as medium risk I recommend repeating the noise assessment every three years.

• For sites identified as a high risk I recommend repeating the noise assessment every two years.

Also, repeat it if you annual in-house review has highlighted any causes for thinking the noise exposure levels may have changed.