Display Screen Work: Main General Duties

However, the employer may need to do more than is required by the Particular General Duties and Specific Rules in order to comply with his main general duties, which are:

1. to ensure, so far as is reasonably, practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of his employees; and

2. to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons NOT in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.

Moreover, the employer has a general duty neither to levy nor permit to be levied on any employee of his any charge in respect of eye and eyesight tests or anything else done or provided in pursuance of any specific requirement of the Health and Safety (Display Screen) Regulations 1992 or other relevant statutory provisions.

Example:

The employer is obliged by the Display Screen Regulations to provide training on how to avoid VDU etc. risks to themselves for employees who use computers or the like as a significant part of their job. The employer has a particular general duty to provide training to self-employed contractors brought in to operate computers etc, but this extends only to the purpose of protecting him employees from risk. However, the main general duty to protect non-employees goes further in that it can require the employer to provide training to non-employees as regards VDU risks to themselves where necessary and cost-effective for health and safety management.