If your people regularly use vibrating hand tools, such as breakers, Stihl saws, grinders, sanders, drills, chainsaws or whacker plates, you have to assess their exposure, control it and be able to show it. This pack gives your own supervisor the documents to do that and to train and record your people.
Hand-arm vibration syndrome is nerve and circulatory damage in the hands that is largely irreversible, with loss of grip and dexterity building up over months and years rather than in one day. HSE puts people at medium risk once they regularly use hammer action tools, such as breakers, for more than about 15 minutes a day.
The pack covers reducing exposure by asking whether a task can be done without a vibrating tool at all, keeping tools sharp and serviced, gripping only as tightly as needed, planned job rotation and breaks, and reporting tingling, numbness or whiteness in the fingers the same day. Whole-body vibration from ride-on plant is a separate risk and is not covered by this pack.
One hazard, done completely, for the whole firm.
Want PHW to come to your site and assess your people instead? Get a quote →
The pack also has a theory test answer key. It is supplied separately to the employer, not published in the pack itself, so the test stays a genuine assessment when your own supervisor marks it.
Available where a customer, principal contractor or insurer asks for records that someone outside your firm has checked.
You assess your own people in-house using the pack, and send PHW the completed records. PHW checks the records and, where they hold up, issues a certificate carrying a QR code that resolves to a live verification page. The certificate states plainly that the assessment was carried out in-house and verified by PHW. Only records that hold up are certified.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
Tell us which tools your people use, how many use them and the site postcode, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
PHW has certificated thousands of candidates nationwide, for multinationals and small firms alike.
HSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£44,000 + £8,062 costs · 2026-02-26
Seven workers developed vibration-related illness including finger blanching and nerve damage after risks went unassessed and uncontrolled.
Read the case →£40,000 + £4,911 costs · 2026-01-12
Staff using vibrating tools with no suitable risk assessment and no exposure records developed Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Read the case →£32,000 + £6,226 costs · 2025-11-03
Tradespeople using drills, breakers and vibrating plates over an extended period without proper controls were diagnosed with vibration-related ill-health such as Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome; HSE received more than ten reports.
Read the case →