To help you stop this happening in your work place.

To offer employers the necessary knowledge and resources to provide an effective occupational hearing conservation policy that has a direct impact on employee health and performance as well as customer satisfaction.

To assist employees whose hearing has been adversely affected by their work.

As an independent testing organisation we endorse only those products that meet the highest standards* of safety, functionality and voice intelligibility performance. One of our Organisation's key objectives over the past 6 years has been to research the causes and effects of Acoustic Shock and work with Government, Unions and Industry to find an affordable solution to guarantee as much as possible the protection of call centre workers hearing and in particular prevent the onset of symptoms associated with Acoustic Shock that are caused by certain types of noise interference and acoustic incidents (see ASP's National Definitions of Acoustic Shock). From 2006 to 2008 we joined forces with the National Physical Laboratory to build test suites to our specification to test amplifier/headset solutions safety and average daily noise exposure performance. Although many products at the time and since have delivered a certain level of safety improvement, none met the standards we were looking for; to guarantee protection from all known acoustic incidents that can cause Acoustic Shock whilst maintaining a high level of Voice Intelligibility and Comfort listening. Over the past year, having again considered both laboratory and field test results of leading call centre headsets and amplifiers, we are proud to endorse two manufacturer's products that best meet these standards as a bundled solution, namely Jabra BIZ™ 2400 or GN2000 headset with the ElaraTek SK200 SonoKlara amplifier, which provide the highest degree of hearing conservation, call clarity and design and build quality worthy of the ASP endorsement. To read more about the ASP Headset/Amplifier recommendation and the products themselves please go to our Equipment Solutions site.

1. Protection from noise incidents at any SPL level that could cause symptoms of acoustic shock; compliance with the average daily noise exposure allowances stipulated in the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 (for the UK) and the Physical Agents (Noise) Directive 2003/10/EC (for the EU).
2. Clear and audible Voice intelligibility that allows easy comfort listening for a minimum of 8 hours per day.
3. Ergonomic, innovative and lightweight product design and functionality that allows comfortable and practical usage for a minimum of 8 hours per day.
4. Quality robust materials and product build that offer a minimum fair ware and tear 2 year manufacturers warranty.

The Acoustic Safety Programme (ASP) has followed its success with NHS Direct Wales by providing an English NHS Trust Hospital with its Award Winning 'Sound Safety' e-learning course. The training covers various aspects of hearing health for call centre workers including: how the ear works and its physical reaction to noise; personal ear hygiene and care as well as how to protect one's hearing both at home and at work; proper use of telecommunications equipment; noise exposure regulations and specific injury risks and symptoms associated with noise exposure such as Noise Induced Hearing Loss and Acoustic Shock, and; risk mitigation and Health & Safety policy. ASP is proud to have been chosen to provide this Hospital's call centre staff with a role-specific yet clinically based learning programme, which clearly demonstrates how medical professionals value our specialist knowledge in this field. We urge other NHS Trust Hospitals to consider this example of good Health & Safety practice and contact ASP for details of the 'Sound Safety' course.

The Acoustic Safety Programme (ASP) has followed its success with NHS Direct Wales by providing an English NHS Trust Hospital with its Award Winning 'Sound Safety' e-learning course. The training covers various aspects of hearing health for call centre workers including: how the ear works and its physical reaction to noise; personal ear hygiene and care as well as how to protect one's hearing both at home and at work; proper use of telecommunications equipment; noise exposure regulations and specific injury risks and symptoms associated with noise exposure such as Noise Induced Hearing Loss and Acoustic Shock, and; risk mitigation and Health & Safety policy. ASP is proud to have been chosen to provide this Hospital's call centre staff with a role-specific yet clinically based learning programme, which clearly demonstrates how medical professionals value our specialist knowledge in this field. We urge other NHS Trust Hospitals to consider this example of good Health & Safety practice and contact ASP for details of the 'Sound Safety' course.

According to our sources a major UK employer who has had many acoustic shock injury cases, some this year, is challenging the 'physical aspects' of the injury. We ask, is this a cynical attempt to avoid liability? In this news story we examine this debate and again provide valuable information to employers from the World’s leading health & safety, clinical and occupational health experts in the field. Read this entire article and those below in the News section on our website, click here…(more)

ASP Consulting has launched a new specialised telecom systems testing service for call centres and office communications infrastructures. The new service is designed to... (more)

“Telefónica O2 UK prides itself in high management standards for health and safety, in order to protect its employees and improve the service we offer to our customers. To maintain these high standards we are constantly looking for improvements for our safe working practices and the technology we use to support both the needs of our customers and our employees...ASP have been able to deliver ground breaking solutions by developing an acoustic engineering based service to provide a highly advanced communication infrastructure monitoring and research service…” (more)

Here at O2 we recognise that to operate award winning customer service and support centres across the UK it is imperative to provide and maintain a safe and healthy working environment. One of these initiatives has been to implement a hearing conservation programme across all our call centres...(more)