When to repeat a noise assessment
When to repeat, review or redo 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.
Most companies can review the noise assessment themselves and if nothing has changed you are good to go.
A complete repeat of the noise assessment can be less frequent and is based a little more on how big the noise risk is on the site.
Noise assessments do not automatically ‘expire’.
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
Extract from L108: HSE's guidance on when to repeat or review a noise assessment.
Their guidance then expands on that and gives a bit more detail on it.
My recommendations on repeating or reviewing 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 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.
