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Although the use of cement and making of concrete in the construction industry is an age-old process, it continues to be the source of many work-related industrial deafness claims.
Factories throughout the UK produce a wide variety of concrete products for a range of needs and managers of these businesses should be fully aware of the risks to their workers' health if their hearing is not protected.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishes guidelines of good practice to ensure employees and their bosses have taken every precaution to guard against irreversible hearing damage and deafness.
Sources of noise are likely to include vibrating tables or conveyors where concrete is compacted to make flat products, such as paving slabs, vibrating presses for making blocks and tiles, and the sounds created by moulds or pallets moving on a conveyor.
Manufactured items being collected together for storage or distribution, products dropping from one part of a conveyor system to another or falling waste material can also create excess noise.
Because the ears gradually become de-sensitised to surrounding noise when continuously exposed to it, independent monitoring for dangerous levels of sound is important.
A simple non-expert test which can be tried in the workplace is if someone standing two metres away from a worker has to shout to make himself heard above the surrounding noise of machinery or an industrial process.
During an eight-hour working period, if this noise level continues in one spot for more than two hours or sound is above an intrusive level for more than six hours then a full risk assessment should be undertaken.
To reduce noise to safer levels to avoid work-related deafness occurring, where possible, employers should increase buffering and acoustic shields or change working methods as well as rotating employees' tasks and providing them with ear protectors.
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) has been developed in Japan and this greatly benefits workers involved in making products which previously would have been compacted by vibration. SCC flows into the corners of moulds by gravity alone, meaning it is a far quieter process than the traditional methods.
Employers are responsible for providing safe and healthy working environments for their employees, especially where a risky procedure is involved, and if someone's hearing has been damaged as a result of that type of situation they may become eligible for compensation.
Solicitors for an industrial deafness claim
Unfortunately, once hearing has been lost through exposure to noise it cannot be regained and, although there may be no pain involved, a sufferer's quality of life is likely to be impaired ‐ making an industrial deafness claim may compensate somewhat for that restriction.
The sympathetic, yet knowledgeable, solicitors of YouClaim have many years of experience in helping people to obtain payments for work-related hearing loss, wherever they live in the UK.
Their standards of work are supervised by the Solicitors Regulation Agency so you can be confident of the best of attention as well as the financial benefits of the case being within the no win no fee system, meaning that 100% of all compensation won will be yours to keep.
If you, or a close loved one, have been affected by industrial deafness, YouClaim offers free advice and representation, should you wish it. To contact a member of our friendly legal team, you can call us now on 0800 10 757 95 or use this webpage for online communication.
