Manual Handling
As an employer, you must protect your workers from the risk of injury from hazardous manual handling in the workplace. 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 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 Manual Handling Course is designed to instruct up to a maximum of 12 delegates. This course is aimed at providing a greater awareness of manual handling, including: injuries, safe movement principles and manual handling equipment.
This course will enable the delegates to 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)
