Quick answer: The DSE Regulations 1992 apply to home and hybrid workers in exactly the same way they apply to office staff. Devon employers must assess every workstation a DSE user works from, fix the gaps, fund eye tests on request, and keep the records. A laptop on a kitchen table is not a compliant workstation.
The duty does not stop at the office door
When hybrid working settled in as the default pattern for office staff across Exeter, Plymouth, Torbay and the wider Devon belt, a quiet compliance gap opened up with it. The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 did not change. The HSE guidance did not change. What changed was the location of the work, and the duty to assess that work travelled with it.
Most Devon employers we visit have an office DSE assessment on file. Far fewer have one for the same employee's home setup. Fewer still have a current record for the spare bedroom, the converted garage or the corner of the kitchen that has been the real workstation since 2020. The regulations apply to those settings too, and the law makes no distinction between a desk in head office and a desk in a Tiverton terrace.
Who counts as a DSE user
The DSE Regulations define a user as someone who habitually uses display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work. The HSE guidance in L26 (the fourth edition of "Work with display screen equipment") sets the practical threshold at around one hour or more of continuous DSE use a day, or use that is largely uninterrupted. In office-based roles that captures almost everyone. In hybrid roles it captures almost everyone too, regardless of which days they happen to be at home.
Some employers assume that a worker who only spends two days a week at home is not a home DSE user. That is not how the regulations read. If the person meets the definition of a user at all, the duty to assess each workstation they regularly use applies. Two days a week at the kitchen table for the past three years is regular use of a workstation, and it must be assessed.
What a home worker assessment must cover
The Schedule to the DSE Regulations sets out the minimum requirements for any workstation. The same Schedule applies in the home. A compliant DSE workstation assessment for a home worker must work through each of the following areas and produce a written record of what was found and what is being done about it.
- The chair: adjustable seat height, backrest with lumbar support, stable five-point base, suitable for the user's height and the hours worked
- The desk or work surface: large enough for the screen, keyboard, mouse and any documents, with sufficient clearance for the legs underneath
- The screen: clear, stable image, adjustable for brightness and contrast, at a height that allows a neutral neck posture, free from reflections and glare
- The keyboard: separate from the screen, tiltable, with space in front for the wrists to rest
- The mouse or pointing device: positioned close to the keyboard, used with a relaxed shoulder and a neutral wrist
- Lighting: adequate for the task, with no veiling reflections on the screen, supplemented where natural light is poor
- The wider environment: noise, temperature, ventilation, trip hazards from cabling, and the space available to move
- Work organisation: how often the user takes breaks, how the work is paced, whether tasks change through the day
- Training: the user understands the risks, knows how to adjust the workstation, knows what to do if symptoms appear
- Eye tests: the user knows they can request one at the employer's expense, and knows how to do so
A home assessment that skips any of those headings is not a complete assessment, and a written record that confirms compliance without addressing them is not a defensible document if a worker later reports injury or the HSE asks to see it.
The kitchen table problem
When we walk into a Devon home to assess a hybrid worker, the picture is usually the same. There is no dedicated office chair. The desk is the dining table, a folding card table or a slab in the corner of a bedroom. The monitor is whatever the laptop came with. The keyboard is the one built into it. The mouse, if there is one, is on a stack of magazines because the table is too high. The lighting is whatever the room had before the work moved in.
This is not a criticism of the worker. Almost nobody set out to build a permanent office in their home, and most people made do with what they had. It is, however, a problem for the employer, because the regulations require the workstation to meet the Schedule and the typical kitchen-table setup does not.
When the assessment surfaces this, the employer has three honest options. Provide the missing equipment (chair, riser, keyboard, mouse, second screen) and document its supply. Provide a clear cash allowance for the worker to buy compliant equipment, with a record of what was purchased. Or recall the worker to the office for the days where prolonged DSE use is unavoidable. Ignoring the assessment, or treating "the home is the worker's responsibility" as the answer, is not a legally available option. The duty under the DSE Regulations sits with the employer, and the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 sits behind it.
Laptop-only setups are not compliant for prolonged use
This is the single most common finding in home assessments across Devon. The worker has a laptop and nothing else. They balance it on the kitchen table, on their lap, on a stack of books or directly on a hard surface. They use the built-in keyboard and the built-in trackpad. They have done so for hours a day for years.
The Schedule to the DSE Regulations requires the keyboard to be separate from the screen and tiltable, and the screen to be at a height that allows a neutral neck posture. A laptop, by design, makes those two requirements incompatible. If the screen is at the right height, the keyboard is in the wrong place. If the keyboard is at the right height, the screen is too low and the user looks down all day, which is what we see in the neck and shoulder complaints that follow.
The fix is straightforward and inexpensive. A laptop riser to lift the screen to eye level, an external keyboard at desk height, and an external mouse next to it. Three items, often under sixty pounds in total, which turn a non-compliant setup into a compliant one. Any home worker doing more than short bursts of DSE work needs this kit, and the employer needs a record that it has been provided.
Eye tests are not optional
Regulation 5 of the DSE Regulations is short and unambiguous. The employer must provide an eye and eyesight test on request by any user, and must do so at the employer's expense. The same duty applies on the same terms to home workers. The test must be carried out by a competent person, which in practice means a registered optometrist, and the cost cannot be deducted from pay or made conditional on length of service.
Where the test identifies a need for corrective appliances used specifically for DSE work, and the user's ordinary prescription will not do, the employer must cover the cost of the basic frames and lenses. The employer is not required to fund designer frames or features that go beyond what is needed for DSE use, but a reasonable basic specification must be paid for.
In Devon, we routinely meet home workers who have been in their job for several years and have never been told this benefit exists. That, on its own, is non-compliance with Regulation 7 (provision of information and training), regardless of whether anyone has ever asked.
Hybrid workers need two assessments
An office desk and a home desk are two different workstations. The chair, the lighting, the screen height, the keyboard, the room layout and the work pattern all differ. A hybrid worker who has had an office assessment but no home assessment is half-assessed at best.
The practical answer is to hold two records for any hybrid user. One for the primary office workstation. One for the primary home workstation. Both should be reviewed on the same cycle, and both should be available if the worker reports symptoms, transfers role, or the HSE comes asking. The cost of a second DSE assessment per worker is modest. The cost of an unaddressed musculoskeletal injury that ends in an Employment Tribunal claim or a civil personal-injury claim is not.
How a video-assisted home assessment actually works
For Devon employers with workers further afield, or where a home visit is not practical, video-assisted assessment is a legitimate alternative and is supported by the HSE 2026 update to its home working guidance. It is not a shortcut, and it is not a tick-box. Done properly it covers the same Schedule as a physical visit. The difference is the method.
A competent assessor will use a structured checklist, schedule a video call of around thirty to forty-five minutes, and ask the user to position the camera so the workstation can be seen from at least three angles: the front, the side, and from behind the user as they sit at the desk. The assessor will direct the user through standard postural checks, ask them to demonstrate how they adjust the chair, the screen and the keyboard, and document each finding with a written note and (with consent) a screenshot.
Within a few working days the assessor sends a written record to the employer and to the worker, listing what was found, what the user should do, what the employer needs to provide, and what the assessor could not verify remotely. Where significant issues are found and cannot be resolved by remote advice, a follow-up physical visit is recommended.
A video assessment without a structured checklist, without screenshots, without a written record and without a follow-up email is not an assessment. It is a chat. The regulations require the assessment to be suitable and sufficient, and a chat is neither.
When a home worker reports pain
Symptoms reporting is the moment most home worker compliance is tested in real life, and it is the moment most employers handle badly. The worker mentions neck pain, wrist ache, eye strain or lower back discomfort, often in passing, and the manager nods sympathetically and moves on. By the time anything formal is done, the symptoms have settled into something harder to undo.
The right response is short and consistent. Take the report seriously and write it down. Reassess the workstation, in person or by video, within a fortnight at the outside. Identify what in the setup is contributing, and provide the equipment or adjustments the assessment recommends. Refer to occupational health where the symptoms are persistent, severe, or do not resolve once the workstation is corrected. Document each step.
Where a worker reports symptoms and no reassessment follows, the employer is exposed to two related risks: a personal-injury claim, and an HSE enquiry. Both turn on the same paper trail, or the absence of it.
When to reassess
The DSE Regulations require the assessment to be kept up to date. In practice that means triggering a fresh assessment whenever any of the following changes:
- The equipment changes (a new laptop, a new monitor, a new chair, a new desk)
- The workstation changes (the worker moves house, the room layout changes, the desk moves)
- The work pattern changes (more hours at the screen, a new role, a new project that involves heavier DSE use)
- The worker reports symptoms (any musculoskeletal or visual complaint)
- The worker returns from prolonged absence, particularly where the absence was related to musculoskeletal injury
- The worker moves from office-based to hybrid, hybrid to home, or home to hybrid
In the absence of any trigger, a routine reassessment every two years is the convention. The HSE does not mandate a fixed interval, but it does expect the record to reflect current reality, and two years is the longest gap most assessors are comfortable defending.
Records, training and what to keep on file
A DSE compliance file for a home or hybrid worker should contain, at a minimum: the most recent assessment for each workstation, evidence of any equipment provided or allowance paid, a record of DSE training completed by the user, the worker's signed acknowledgement that they know how to request an eye test, and a note of any symptoms reported and how they were addressed. If you cannot put your hand on those documents within five minutes for any DSE user, the file is not in defensible shape.
Training does not have to be elaborate. The HSE expects users to understand the risks, know how to set up their workstation, know how to take breaks effectively, and know what to do if they experience symptoms. A twenty-minute briefing with a short written test, repeated every couple of years and after any role change, is enough to evidence Regulation 7. What is not enough is to assume the worker "knows" because they have been doing the job for years.
Why this matters in Devon, specifically
Hybrid is no longer a transitional pattern in Devon office life. It is the settled pattern. The Exeter professional-services cluster, the public sector in Plymouth and Torbay, accountancy and legal practices across the county, design and digital agencies, charities and trusts, county-council back-office teams: most have a permanent split between desk-time at the office and desk-time at home. That split has been stable for years now, and the equipment, the chairs, the lighting and the working habits at the home end have not been formally assessed in many cases.
The HSE has been clear, including in its 2026 update to home working guidance, that the regulator's expectation has not softened. The employer's duty did not relax when the work moved out of the office. It came with the work. A Devon SME that has not assessed its home workers is in the same position as one that has not assessed its office workers, and the only difference is that the office gap is more obvious.
The good news is that bringing a home and hybrid DSE programme up to standard is not difficult and not expensive. A competent assessor, a structured checklist, a short list of low-cost equipment, a written record per workstation, and a sensible review cycle. That is the whole programme. The reason most businesses have not done it is not cost. It is that nobody has prompted them to.
This article is for general information only and reflects the law as it stood on the date of publication. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for advice specific to your situation. TestSafe Compliance provides audit and assessment services only. Where a specific legal question arises, seek advice from a qualified solicitor or employment law specialist.
Frequently asked questions
Do the DSE Regulations really apply to home workers?
Yes, and the position is settled. The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 apply to anyone who is a DSE user, and there is no exemption based on where the work takes place. The HSE L26 guidance (fourth edition) is explicit on this point, and the 2026 update to the HSE home working guidance reinforces it. The duty to assess the workstation, to provide training, to fund eye tests, and to act on what the assessment finds, all sit with the employer regardless of whether the desk is in the office, in a converted spare bedroom in Cullompton, or at a kitchen table in Newton Abbot.
Is a laptop on a sofa or a kitchen table compliant?
For short bursts, yes. For prolonged use, no. The Schedule to the DSE Regulations requires the keyboard to be separate from the screen and tiltable, and the screen to be at a height that allows a neutral neck posture. A laptop used on its own forces a compromise that the regulations do not allow for prolonged use. The standard fix is a laptop riser, an external keyboard and an external mouse, supplied by the employer and recorded as supplied. Where the worker spends most of their day on the laptop, an external second screen is also worth considering. None of this is luxury kit. It is what the workstation requires.
Who pays for an eye test for a home worker?
The employer. Regulation 5 of the DSE Regulations places the duty squarely on the employer to provide and pay for an eye and eyesight test on request by any user, and to repeat that test at intervals recommended by the optometrist. The same duty applies to home and hybrid workers as to office workers. Where the test identifies a need for corrective appliances used specifically for DSE work, the employer must cover the cost of basic frames and lenses. The employer is not obliged to pay for premium frames or features that go beyond what DSE use requires, but a reasonable basic specification must be funded.
Do hybrid workers need a separate home assessment?
Yes. A hybrid worker has two workstations, one at the office and one at home, and the risks at each are different. The chair, the screen, the keyboard, the lighting and the layout differ, and an assessment of one tells you nothing reliable about the other. A defensible compliance file holds two written assessments per hybrid worker, both reviewed on the same cycle. The marginal cost of a second assessment is modest compared with the cost of an unaddressed musculoskeletal complaint, a civil claim, or an HSE enquiry that finds the home setup was never looked at.
How often should home workers be reassessed?
Whenever anything changes that affects the workstation, the equipment or the work pattern. That includes new kit, a new house, a new role, a new project with heavier DSE use, any reported symptoms, and any return from prolonged absence. Beyond those triggers, a routine reassessment every two years is the convention. The HSE does not prescribe a fixed interval, but it does expect the record to reflect current reality. If a worker's circumstances now look nothing like the assessment on file, the assessment is out of date, however recently it was signed.