Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Musculoskeletal disorders
This page contains information on:
A risk assessment is a careful examination of what could cause harm to people in the workplace. Doing a risk assessment will help employers identify the significant risks in their workplace, and avoid wasted effort by effectively targeting these. A good risk assessment will help avoid accidents and ill health, which can not only ruin lives, but can also increase costs to business through lost output, compensation claims and higher insurance premiums.
Risk assessment is a five stage process and involves:
General advice on how to carry out a risk assessment is contained in 'Five
steps to risk assessment' [664kb]
Involving employees and safety representatives in the risk assessment process is a highly effective way of identifying hazards and developing solutions that work.
Employers have a legal obligation to protect their health and safety and that of their workforce. Regulation 3, of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, requires, among other things, that all employers assess the risks to the health and safety of their employees while they are at work.
As well as the general risk assessment requirements set out in the Management Regulations, there is a requirement in the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) to carry out a risk assessment on manual handling tasks. The main areas to focus on are the task, load, working environment and individual capability. The guidance on the manual handling Regulations contains a risk assessment filter and checklist to help employers assess manual handling tasks. A revised version of the manual handling guidance was published in March 2004. It also includes a checklist to help you assess the risk posed by workplace pushing and pulling activities.
HSE have also produced the Manual Handling Assessment Chart (MAC), which can be used to help identify high-risk tasks. The MAC does not comprise a full risk assessment, as some aspects, such as individual factors, are not covered.
In relation to upper limb disorders, the filter [120kb]
and risk assessment worksheets [50kb]
featured in the guidance booklet Upper limb disorders in the workplace
can be used as an aid to risk assessment. They are intended to help employers
identify the potential risks and possible ways to reduce them.
The Display Screen Equipment Regulations 1992 (as amended) require employers to undertake an analysis of the workstation to assess and reduce risks. To assist employers to comply with the minimum requirements we have produced a visual display unit (VDU) workstation checklist as an aid to risk assessment. It is available in the two guidance documents Work with display screen equipment and The law on VDUs: An easy guide. You can also buy the VDU workstation checklist separately in packs of five. See information page.
A risk assessment should cover all standard operations, including cleaning and maintenance activities. It should reflect how the work is actually done.
Here are just some of the other tools that are available to be used to assess various occupational tasks or jobs. Please be aware that this is not an exhaustive list and that there maybe other, more applicable, approaches that assess the task or job more accurately.
For a basic introduction to health and safety, including a section on risk
assessment and a form to record the details see the leaflet An
introduction to health and safety [PDF 364kb].
To help you assess risks and review the effectiveness of your risk assessment, it is important that you record sickness absence, including the length of, and reasons for absence. For example sickness records could reveal a pattern of back pain or upper limb disorders in a particular area of the workplace or people performing similar tasks. This could mean that there is a work-related cause for the disorder and that you need to review the risk assessment in consultation with your employees. On the 27th October HSE launched a guide for employers and managers called Managing Sickness Absence and Return to Work. It is supported by a free leaflet designed for employees, a free desk aid for small businesses and webpages that contain case studies on managing sickness absence from MSD's.
When an employee returns to work after an absence due to a musculoskeletal disorder (or other illness or change in health), you may need to consider modifying the job, work system or workstation to avoid worsening their condition. Discussion with employees affected, colleagues and safety representatives can often identify a simple adjustment that would benefit the employee concerned and prevent others becoming ill or injured.
New guidance focuses on the risk of low back pain as the main health effect of concern for drivers and operators of mobile machinery at work. It describes health monitoring which is an informal non-statutory method of surveying your workforce for symptoms of ill health including low back pain. This type of occupational health management system can enable you as an employer to be aware of health problems and intervene to prevent their problems being caused or made worse by work activities. Another important role of health monitoring is to feedback into a system that reviews current control methods in place.