User:Rgray001/Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992

It is duty and legal requirement for an employer to ensure employees acknowledge and abide to health and safety practices within the working environment. An employer should evade the acquisition of sustaining an employee to dangerous manual handling. An analysis should divulge potential risks or injury factors associated with manual handling that may entail anomalies through appropriately avoiding and therefore must be undertaken. Methodical practices should be ascertained to minimise the occurrence of injury transpiring through unsafe manual handling.

An employee should adhere to theses guidelines accordingly; ensuring safety through the correct utilisation of equipment, while collaborating with health and safety issues stipulated by their employer. They should immediately inform their employer upon the recognition or acknowledgment of dangerous handling activities; and ensure that their actions don’t endanger others.

The factors associated with undertaking manual handling may disclose that this eventuality isn’t a required scenario, hence automated processes or mechanisation could undertake the required actives; therefore for example the latter may determine that a fork lift truck can be utilised to move materials by an efficiently trained operator.

An employer is therefore accountable for ascertaining the risk assessment. This may be performed through a simple observation or seeking advice through an external party. The assessment may be executed by an employee; who in turn disclose potential associated problems. A general assessment can therefore be devised by an employer upon complete analysis. The accumulated and resulting findings shouldn’t be discarded; hence repetitive risk assessments would have to be undertaken under appropriate supervision.

Although upon a major modification to an employee’s environment, updating the risk assessment would be a mandatory obligation to ensure and accurate portrayal of the associated workplace. The potential risk factors should be evaded as appropriate, inducing increased employee productivity, constituting reduced financial losses through employee absences.

The handling technique required to minimise strain or inflict injuring should be conveyed to employees as follows. Firstly; the applicable person should ascertain recognition of environment when attempting to move an item; hence obstructions such as discarded items may obscure the location and or required placement of the item which should be moved appropriately.

The person should then position their feet apart to obtain a balanced and stable orientation; the position of the feet should face forwardly of the proposed route, while a leading leg is located comfortably further forward. The back should maintain its natural curvature though predominantly straight, and through bending form the knees without excessive flex. The person should then slightly lean over the applicable item and ascertain a strong grip; while maintaining the shoulder in equal alignment to their hips.

Upon lifting the item; a person should ensure there are of a close proximity to the boundary of their legs. The items should ideally be orientated within close vicinity to the desired end location. The user should rise the item un-awkwardly, elevating their chin in linear fashion of the lift; while reducing the possibility of eradicate movement. The person shouldn’t twist their feet upon turning sides. The item should be then placed as appropriate and slid into its desired location.

Source: Manual handling a short guide to employers September 2004 Handout