Employers refuse time off for DSE sight tests

Safety reps have told Workplace Report that employers are abusing the law relating to eye tests for users of display screen equipment (DSE).

Under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, any employee who uses DSE can request an eye test, with the employer obliged to provide one.

But reps report that some employers expect the test to take place in the employee's own time, or dock the employee's pay if s/he takes time off for the test.

Advice from the Health and Safety Executive is not very helpful on this matter, yet it seems absurd for employees to have the right to a free eye test but no right to take time off for the test. Such an interpretation also seems contrary to the original European directive on DSE safety - which says that "measures may in no circumstances involve workers in additional financial cost" - and to Section 9 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Tell us your experiences of securing DSE users' eye tests: call 020 7928 3649 or e-mail [email protected]