The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

1.  Subject to the exception specified in paragraph 2 below, these Regulations give effect as respects Great Britain to the substantive provisions of Council Directive 90/270/EEC on the minimum safety and health requirements for work with display screen equipment (OJ No. L156, 21.6.90, p.14)

2.  These Regulations do not purport to give effect to paragraphs 2 and 4 of article 9 of the Directive specified in paragraph 1 above.

3.  Regulation 2 requires each employer–

(a)to make a suitable and sufficient analysis of those workstations which–

(i)(regardless of who has provided them) are used for the purposes of his undertaking by users, or

(ii)have been provided by him and are used for the purposes of his undertaking by operators;

(b)to assess the health and safety risks to which those operators or users are exposed in consequence of that use;

(c)to reduce those risks to the lowest extent reasonably practicable; and

(d)in the circumstances specified in paragraph (2) of that regulation, to review (and where necessary change) any assessment such as is referred to in sub-paragraph (b) above.

4.  Regulation 1(2) defines not only the words “operator”, “user” and “workstation”, but also the phrase “display screen equipment”.

5.  Regulation 3 requires each employer to ensure that any workstation which–

(a)(regardless of who has provided it) may be used for the purposes of his undertaking by users; or

(b)has been provided by him and may be used for the purposes of his undertaking by operators,

meets the requirements laid down in the Schedule to these Regulations. In the case of workstations first put into service on or before 31st December 1992, the employer has until 31st December 1996 to ensure compliance with the above-mentioned requirements.

6.  Regulation 4 requires each employer to plan the activities of users at work in his undertaking in such a way that their daily work on display screen equipment is periodically interrupted by such breaks or changes of activity as reduce their workload at that equipment.

7.  Regulation 5 requires each employer to ensure that users employed by him are provided–

(a)with initial eye and eyesight tests on request;

(b)at regular intervals thereafter and with the consent of the users concerned, with subsequent eye and eyesight tests;

(c)with additional eye and eyesight tests on request, where the users concerned are experiencing visual difficulties which might reasonably be considered to be caused by work on display screen equipment; and

(d)with appropriate special corrective appliances, where normal corrective appliances cannot be used and any eye and eyesight tests carried out on the users concerned in accordance with regulation 5 show such provision to be necessary.

8.  Regulation 6 requires each employer to ensure that–

(a)users employed by him are provided with adequate health and safety training in the use of their workstations; and

(b)users at work in his undertaking are provided with adequate health and safety training whenever their workstations are substantially modified.

9.  Regulation 7 requires each employer to ensure that operators and users at work in his undertaking are provided with adequate health and safety information, both about their workstations and about such measurements taken by him to comply with regulations 2 to 6 of these Regulations as relate to them and their work.

10.  Regulation 8 enables the Secretary of State for Defence to grant certificates of exemption from these Regulations in the interests of national security.

11.  Regulation 9 extends the application of these Regulations to and in relation to certain premises and activities outside Great Britain.