As you are aware, I recently had to visit A&E after getting sudden severe pains in my fingers whilst working. As you may also be aware I have since started bringing in my “Kinesis Advantage” USB keyboard from home as using this successfully prevents the problem. This is because the only help the hospital were able to offer was to either do less typing or get a more suitable keyboard.

What you are probably not aware of is that I had a similar problem approximately 13 years ago back when I worked for Marconi. I did a lot of research back then before purchasing a “Kinesis Ergo Elan” which is basically the same keyboard only with an AT keyboard connector rather than USB. Again this solved the problem, after an adjustment period of several weeks, and again I used to take it to work every day until I started working for FMC as I was home based.

Unfortunately commuting with the old keyboard took its toll on the old one over the 10+ years I owned it, hence it’s replacement with the USB “Advantage” model. I am anxious to avoid this fate befalling the new keyboard and thus am asking if Serco would consider getting me the same model for use in work.

There are several reasons I am after this specific model, the main one being that in addition to the usual problems with tendons caused in typing In particular, I have problems with the smaller muscles that move the fingers side to side and the design of the Kinesis significantly reduces this movement by arranging the keys into vertical columns. The little finger is particularly affected and again the Kinesis helps by moving all but one of the modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt etc.) to the thumb area.

I have in the past tried the more conventional split design, such as the “Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard” and found them to be ineffective. With the Kinesis I have been able to work normally without problems for the last 13 years, having only had this recurrence since spending 8 hours a day on a standard Dell keyboard, hence this request

Regards,