Manual handling at work

As an employer, you must protect your workers from the risk of injury from hazardous manual handling at work. Manual handling means transporting or supporting a load by hand or bodily force. It includes lifting, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving loads. A load can be an object, person or animal.

The law sets out how employers must deal with risks from manual handling:

• avoid hazardous manual handling, so far as is reasonably practicable
• assess the risk of injury from any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided
• reduce the risk of injury from hazardous manual handling to as low as reasonably practicable

The weight of a load is important, though the law does not set specific weight limits.

In some cases, you must provide information about the weight and position of the centre of gravity of each load, if there is a risk of injury and it is reasonably practicable to do this.

Avoid hazardous manual handling

You can avoid hazardous manual handling operations by:

• redesigning the task to avoid moving the load
• automating or mechanising the process

The best time to decide about mechanisation or automation is when you design plant or work systems. Design the layout of a process so there is very little movement of materials.

Consider introducing, for example, a conveyor, a chute, a pallet truck, an electric or hand-powered hoist, or a lift truck to reduce the risk of harm. Mechanical aids can also help reduce or eliminate risks from manual handling.

Assess manual handling you can’t avoid

Assess the risk of injury from any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided.

You should consider the task, the load, the working environment and individual capability, for example:

• the postures adopted
• how far the load is lifted, lowered or carried
• the frequency of the task
• the weight of the load
• the nature of the load (for example hot, sharp or slippery)
• cramped work areas
• poor floor surfaces
• poor lighting, extremes of temperature
• workers’ strength, fitness and underlying medical conditions (for example a history of back problems)

Also, look out for:

• workers breathing heavily and sweating
• workers who complain of excessive fatigue
• reluctance to do a particular task
• the availability of equipment to help with the lift

Choose the right level of assessment for each task

Some tasks are low risk and don’t need formal assessment. There are simple filters to help you distinguish low-risk tasks from those which need a more detailed assessment.

We also have risk assessment tools to help you identify high-risk handling operations and prioritise action to control the risks:

• the Manual Handling Assessment Charts (MAC) tool for lifting, carrying and team handling
• the Variable Manual handling Assessment Chart (V-MAC) tool to help assess complex manual handling operations where load weights vary
• the Risk Assessment of Pushing and Pulling (RAPP) tool
• the Assessment of Repetitive Tasks (ART) tool if the task involves repetitive work using the upper limbs

Source: hse.gov.uk