Employees who use display screen equipment - VDU's - as a significant part of their normal work are entitled to request their employer to pay for an eye test. The employer then provides the VDU user with further eye and eyesight tests at regular - typically annual - intervals.
Employers are only then required to pay for corrective appliances / glasses if the eye test shows that special ones are necessary for VDU work and that normal ones cannot be used.
Therefore, if the eye test shows a sight problem that requires correction for purposes other than VDU use, but which might include VDU use, the law does not require the employer to pay for any spectacles prescribed.
This means that only a small proportion of people need special spectacles for VDU work. These typically have prescription lenses for the intermediate distance at which the VDU screen is viewed.
The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 do not intend to provide free spectacles to all VDU users but instead to make sure that people with special needs related to their use of a VDU as part of their employment should not have to pay to receive glasses that enable them to carry out their work.
For more information about eye tests and the typical contribution employers make towards the costs of spectacles, please call Vicky on 01494 451681 or e-mail vicky@hradvantage.co.uk.
April/May 2007
