DSE assessments
For the helpdesk teamDSE assessments
Section titled “DSE assessments”DSE — Display Screen Equipment — assessments are required by the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 for staff who use DSE habitually as a significant part of their work. Office staff, admin, finance, IT — anyone at a keyboard for more than an hour a day continuously.
What’s on an assessment
Section titled “What’s on an assessment”- Display name + role — who the assessment is for.
- Workstation location — “Reception desk”, “finance office, desk by the window”. Surfaces in cross-referencing.
- Hours per day at DSE — informational, drives whether the regs apply.
- Findings — what the assessment surfaced.
- Actions required — chair adjustment, screen height, eye test referral, etc.
- Equipment provided — adjustable chair, footrest, screen riser, separate keyboard, etc.
- Eye test offer — flag + date offered (HSE requires it offered for DSE users).
- Assessor — who did the assessment. Often the H&S lead or a trained line manager.
- Valid until — when this needs revisiting. Standard cycle is 2 years.
When to assess
Section titled “When to assess”- On hire for any role that uses DSE habitually.
- When a worker reports DSE-related discomfort.
- After a change (new equipment, new desk, new role).
- Every 2 years as standard cycle.
Gotchas
Section titled “Gotchas”- Habitually is the regulatory threshold. Staff who use a screen briefly throughout the day (e.g. teaching, occasional admin) are not DSE users in the regulatory sense. Don’t assess every member of staff “just to be safe” — it dilutes the record.
- Eye tests are offered not mandated. Record the offer, not whether the staff member took it up. They can decline.
- The assessment is for the worker, not done to them — they fill it out, the assessor reviews. A purely assessor-driven assessment misses the things only the worker knows.