The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires all businesses in the UK to provide whatever information, instruction, training and supervision is necessary to ensure the health and safety of employees at work. Despite the legal requirement, health and safety training has a bad reputation. Due to training being branded boring by employees, it has been seen primarily as a tick-box exercise rather than an important step in making the workplace safer.
What is manual handling?
Manual handling refers to a variety of activities including lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling and carrying. When these tasks are not carried out correctly, there is a risk of injury.
Why is safe manual handling important?
Following safe manual handling practices can help prevent serious injury as well as small injuries that can have serious impacts over time. In addition, manual handling injuries can have serious consequences for both the employer and the person who has been injured. Employees are required by law to perform a risk assessment of the hazards relevant to their workplace and could be held liable for an injury if it was found that adequate safety measures were lacking. Employers therefore have the responsibility to assess risks and do what they can to mitigate them, and employers must follow all rules for safe manual handling, inform their employers of any risks they identify, and take care to make sure that their activities do not put others at risk..
New manual handing training module
Over one third of all work related injuries are from manual handling. The most common are back injuries. Anyone involved in transporting items by their hands or bodily force should be aware of safe manual handling techniques, and the risks involved.
We have just added a new interactive module to our health and safety compliance training.
The manual handling module covers:
- Employers’ responsibilities to keep their staff safe
- Best-practice guidance on lifting, pushing and pulling devices
- How to best push and pull heavy objects on heavy surfaces
- Instances when a detailed risk assessment is required
The module can either be taken as a standalone course or added to our health and safety compliance course.
Training for staff working from home
Even if employees are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employers still have a duty of care and are bound by the health and safety training requirements.
Health and Safety: Working at Home, is specifically designed for people who need to know about health and safety while working from home. The course delivers short, interactive health and safety training units which are designed to make sure staff are conscious of safety concerns while they are working from home. The course focuses on aspects of health and safety that are pertinent to a home office, particularly ergonomics and proper use of display screen equipment (DSE).
