Questions raised in parliament on hearing threat to call centre staff

Concerns over increasing numbers of injuries and illness caused by acoustic shock and other noise related hazards to call centre workers have led to questions being asked in Parliament on the issue.

On Wednesday November 22, Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South, highlighted the concerns over what government action is being taken on acoustic shock, by asking John Hutton MP, the Secretary State of Work and Pensions, various questions on the issue. This included what equipment was installed to protect his departmentís call centre workers from acoustic shock and related incidents and the number reported to the Health and Safety Executive.

Acoustic shock will be discussed by leading experts at the second Acoustic Safety Conference at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow on November 27 and 28.

Incidents of acoustic shock ñ a sudden and unexpected noise received through headphones or earpiece ñ are on the increase, and medical specialists, such as ENT surgeon Mr. Don McFerran, Dr Janice Milhinch from Australia and Drs Baguley and McKenna from the UK, will be providing evidence and advice on how to recognise and manage risks to hearing from sudden noise inside call centres.

More than 700 people have suffered acoustic shock and have been compensated with a total of around 2.5 million to date. Around 300 further known cases are pending. There are believed to be many more people who have experienced acoustic shock but do not realise it.

Delia Henry, the director of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf in Scotland, will tell the conference about the dangers to the 900,000 staff employed in the call centre industry across the UK.

Lisa Fowlie, president of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, Europeís largest professional health and safety body, will make her first presidential keynote speech to the conference since becoming president earlier this month. With such a high incident rate, it would be expected that the call centre industry was taking steps to mitigate the risk to its employees. Although some organisations are, the vast majority are not. A recent report has revealed that almost two thirds of the 900,000 people in the UK employed in the call centre industry are not protected by a health and safety policy to cover acoustic shock (ContactBabel 2006 annual report).

The first conference was held in November 2005 at the National Physical Laboratory near London. Since then, the new Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 came into force this April which only helps to confuse the growing issues surrounding noise interference and acoustic shock occurring at volume levels lower than those identified by this new legislation.

Full details of the conference timetable, and of the speakers, can be found on the conference website at: