Hearing protection - FAQ

Hello, my name is Bob a Health and Safety Manager.

The company is a bakery and we have mandatory hearing protection zones in our factory as the noise levels are above the second action level, re Noise regs 2005.

My problem is that we have certain employees who wear hearing aids. Once an ear test by the local hospital has been carried out, how do we protect their hearing from deterioration when working in the protection zones?

If we issue ear plugs with the correct SNR, total deafness occurs, thus creating other safety problems such as disorientation and inability to hear fire alarms etc. If no active hearing protector is available short term, we would install medium/long term controls such as buddy system and visual flashing fire alarms etc..

Can you advise if you have come across this problem and is any hearing defender available, thanks, Bob.

Most modern hearing aids have inbuilt threshold limiting to match the users hearing and a solid earmould is effectively a very good custom made earplug.

I would suggest that you check with the hearing aid issuer on a case by case basis and as long as they confirm that the hearing aid has max volume limiting/WDRC then earplugs are probably not necessary if not pointless as they would be less effective than the hearing aid with its earmould.

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