Manual Handling, is it a problem?

Yes, in this country manual handling injuries account for over 38% of all over ‘three day lost time’ injuries. As an  employer, there are certain duties placed upon you to ensure that suitable and sufficient assessments concerning the risks of your employee's Health & Safety are carried out. The handling and moving of goods is covered by the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. There are guidance notes accompanying the regulations published by the HSE, showing a hierarchy of measures that an employer would be expected to take. These measures are:

• Avoid all manual handling operations so far as is reasonably practicable.
• Assess any manual handling operations that cannot be avoided, thereby reducing the risk of injury.

Where manual handling is unavoidable,employers should carry out a risk assessment to include the following areas:
• The tasks.
• The loads.
• The working environment.
• The capacity of the individual to do the
• work.
• Other factors such as the effect of protective clothing, and provide information on the weight of loads to be handled.

The risk assessment will need to be reviewed when working conditions change. Some guideline figures are as follows:

The aforementioned guideline figures for lifting & lowering are for relatively infrequent operations, up to 30 operations per hour. The guideline figures will have to be reduced if the operation is repeated more often.