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Risk Assessment for Employed Musicians

Where you are directly employed the main responsibility falls on the employer.

Last updated: 26 July 2021

The main legislation covering this is the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations but there are other regulations which have more specific provisions, such as for manual handling or noise.

The employer has to do the RA and is supposed to involve you and your safety reps. You should be told about matters that will affect you.

The employer has to draw up an action plan of how they will eliminate or reduce any risks you are exposed to. The procedure for doing this is set out in a short Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guide Five Steps to Risk Assessment.

A number of things have to be looked at in regard to musicians, such as:

  • noise exposure
  • electrical equipment
  • musculo-skeletal problem (meaning looking at how you work physically and aches and strains that may result, seating, posture)
  • working on stages
  • working outside
  • rehearsal spaces.

If you are concerned about any aspects of health safety or welfare you should talk to your MU Regional Officer and your MU Health and Safety Rep.

The MU can give advice on how to deal with different health and safety problems like hearing testing, noise levels, working at height or touring.

If you wanted to look at the sorts of things your employer should be looking at a good guide is the free Online Interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) tool.

If your employer is finding it difficult to know what they should be looking at, you can also refer them to OiRA, which is geared towards the need of employers.