Course Key Facts:
Duration: 1 day

INTRODUCTION
Every year more than two million people in Britain take about 13 million days off work for illness which they can blame on their workplace. A large proportion of these people suffer hearing problems or even deafness caused by exposure to high levels of noise, which, sometimes, is only for a comparatively short period of time. Yet hearing safety could be dramatically improved by relatively simple and inexpensive means.

COURSE AIMS
This one day course is aimed at providing delegates with an overview of the problems caused by noise at work, methods of measuring and controlling noise, and the requirements of the Noise at Work Regs (1989). It is particularly suitable for those individuals in industry and business eg. managers, safety officers, supervisors etc. who have the responsibility for implementing the Noise at Work Regulations (1989) and who train/instruct others in compliance with current legislation.

It should be noted that this course will not qualify staff to be competent in carrying out full noise assessments. This will require training lasting 4/5 days available on request from UGCS.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
The course provides:
• a framework for the understanding of the physical properties of sound/noise and how the physiological mechanisms of hearing may be overloaded to cause hearing problems and deafness.
• an understanding of the causes of occupational deafness, the typical symptoms, and the social and medical problems arising from it.
• instruction in the use of the decibel scale, equal loudness contours, the A-weighting scale, noise dose and Leq, and the associated instrumentation.

On completion of the course, delegates will be able to:
• outline the main requirements of the Noise at Work Regulations (1989)
• determine how to comply with the 90dB(A) criterion
• carry out basic noise measurements
• make recommendations on how to reduce and control exposure to Noise
• instruct others in compliance with existing legislation

The course will also include a practical assignment in the measurement of noise level and dose, and also a written assessment for the testing of competence. A Certificate of training will be awarded.