Audiometry Services
It is easy to safeguard your employees against losing their hearing as a result of noise at work. An audiometric test, or hearing test, is non-obtrusive and only takes around 15 minutes. Hearing tests are conducted in a quiet room on site, such as an empty office or meeting room.
if employees are regularly exposed to noise levels of 85 dB (A) or above across an 8 hour working day, the employer is obliged by law to provide hearing testing on a regular basis under the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.
Audiometric Test Methods
An employee’s ears are inspected using an otoscope to make sure that there is no excess wax present, which can cause inaccurate results. The employee then listens to a series of beeps at varying volumes and frequency. When the beep is audible, the employee pushes a hand held button. It’s that simple.
We then analyse the results and create an audiogram – this is a graph showing the employees hearing threshold. We calculate whether the employee has a hearing level that is typical of a person of their age, of whether there is any sign of hearing loss. If it is suspected that there is hearing loss, the employee is referred to a specialist for further investigation.
This test is then repeated annually for the next two years, then once every three years thereafter providing that no deterioration is found. If an employee does show signs of hearing loss we will recommend a scheme of noise protection and then re-test the employee every year until there is no further deterioration.
Qualifications and Experience
Audiometric testing and ongoing hearing health surveillance are provided by National Audiometry Services, an independent specialist provider of workplace audiometry and health surveillance services run by Liz Garritt.
Elizabeth Garritt holds a degree in BioMedical Science, membership of the Institute of Acoustics and also qualification with accreditation to the British Society of Audiology (BSA) for conducting Audiometric tests. Elizabeth has undertaken hundreds of audiometric tests for a wide range of companies since 2010.