White finger: employers' duties under new Act

摘要

Around 3000 new claims are made each year for Industrial Injury Disability Benefit and huge sums of compensation are paid out, the latest being an estimated £3bn for 165 000 ex-miners. New proposed health and safety legislation comes into force in July 2005 to control vibration at work. According to Health and Safety Executive (HSE) there are an estimated 300 000 people with advanced stages of Vibration White Finger (VWF), the most common form of Hand-Arm-Vibration (HAV) syndrome and reason to claim occupational ill-health. The industries most vulnerable to these claims are where workers are regularly exposed to high levels of vibration from hand-held or hand guided power tools and the holding of materials that vibrate when fed into machines.