28 February 2003
New guidance on using computers and preventing RSI
New guidance to help reduce musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), such as backaches or repetitive strain injury (RSI) at work, has today been published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), to coincide with International RSI Awareness day.
Around 1.1 million people in Great Britain suffered from MSDs caused or made worse by work, in 2001/02.
Advice on using laptops and working with a computer mouse is available in 'The law on VDUs: an easy guide', and 'Work with Display Screen Equipment', while 'Aching arms (or RSI) in small businesses' offers advice on RSI in other work activities.
Health and Safety Commissioner (HSC) Owen Tudor, launching the three HSE guidance booklets at a conference organised by the RSI Association in Nottingham, said: "The time for excuses is over. By following the guidance, preventative action in most workplaces can be taken quite easily and need not be costly. Indeed it is likely to be far more expensive for employers and their insurers to ignore RSI, which may lead not only to compensation claims, but also to costs arising from sickness absences and reduced productivity.
"Excessive work pressures, such as high job demands, time pressures and a lack of control, can often act alongside physical risk factors like force, posture and repetition, and can influence both the onset and duration of RSI. Only an integrated management approach which addresses both the organisational and the physical aspects of a worker's job and work environment is likely to be successful in preventing RSI.
"It is particularly important to identify signs of RSI early, to treat the individual and remedy the causes, including stress and other psychosocial factors in the workplace, before the condition moves into its chronic phase".
An estimated 12.3 million working days were lost due to work-related MSDs and on average each sufferer took 19.4 days off in 2001/02. These figures include upper limb disorders from which approximately 400,000 people suffered, resulting in a loss of around four million working days in the same period. ...more
Downloads from the UK Government site Health & Safety Executive,
Aching Arms (or RSI) in small businesses 171KB
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