Nobody expected a year ago that we would be looking at the situation where a large proportion of the workforce are working from home, and that in many businesses part-time homeworking was going to be the new normal. The Health & Safety Executive when it wrote the DSE framework in 2002 certainly did not foresee this reality.

Since the spring last year, we have promoted our video assessment offering, and we have conducted 1000’s of DSE video assessments in the last year. Looking at the matrixes of customer satisfaction, end user satisfaction, accuracy of the prescription of any furniture orders, and complaints (none) we can confirm that we are as successful in video DSE assessments as we were with our well-established face to face DSE service. With homeworkers video DSE assessments we also bypass issues of COVID security and of Lone Working.

We use MS Teams for all our calls as it is a product that is known by most people, it does not require a download onto the employees’ phone or PC to connect, it is reliable, and most importantly it is cleared by NHS Digital as offering medical grade security connections.

To conduct the DSE video assessments we use specialist occupational health chartered physiotherapists which enables us to assess not only the workstation but also the person. In our view just assessing the workstation and recommending equipment is often a sticking plaster over the real issues that are driving the employees’ pain and discomfort, such as poor working practices. If a £1200 ergonomic chair is supplied to someone with poor work practices and habits it is unlikely to change their pain. In line with the scientific evidence on sedentary working we recommend education and lifestyle changes above expensive equipment.