HSE publishes improved guidance on preventing manual handling injuries

HSE Press Release: E040:04 - 31 March 2004

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today publishes revised manual handling guidance helping employers and employees to take sensible steps to reduce injuries.

The new guidance, L23 Manual Handling: Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) and INDG143 (rev2) Getting to grips with manual handling: a short guide, have been thoroughly revised to take account of improved knowledge of the risks from manual handling and how to avoid them. But the essential messages about reducing risks remain the same.

Getting to grips is a short, free booklet aimed particularly at smaller businesses and which is also suitable for supervisors, safety representatives and individual workers.

Almost a third of all industrial injuries are caused by manual handling accidents. And they are part of a much larger problem: an estimated 1.1 million people in Britain suffer from work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), including those caused by manual handling. MSDs account for around half of all work-related ill health. As a result of MSDs an estimated 12.3 million working days were lost in 2002/2003. In 1995/1996 MSDs cost society £5.7 billion.

Elizabeth Gyngell, Head of HSE's Better Working Environment Division, said "This guidance forms part of the Health and Safety Commission's Priority Programme on musculoskeletal disorders. By following the guidance, preventive action can be taken quite easily in most workplaces and need not be costly. Indeed it is likely to be far more expensive for employers and their insurers to ignore the risks from manual handling - which may lead not only to compensation claims, but also to costs arising from sickness absence and reduced productivity."

The revision of the guidance shows the important role of the research programme on musculoskeletal disorders which HSE funds. The new guidance takes account of:
· Research by the Institute of Occupational Medicine on good handling technique (The principles of good manual handling: Achieving a consensus, RR097 available on HSE's website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/index.htm or from HSE Books)
· A review by HSE's Health and Safety Laboratory of risks associated with pushing and pulling of heavy loads (to be published as an HSE research report later this spring).

Further musculoskeletal research projects that will be available this year include studies of risk perception of musculoskeletal disorders, the effective management of upper limb disorders by occupational health professionals, and the link between stress and musculoskeletal disorders.

Copies of L23 'Manual handling: Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) - Guidance on Regulations, ISBN 0 7176 2823 X, price £8.95, are available from HSE Books: http://books.hse.gov.uk

Copies of INDG143 'Manual handling at work: A brief guide', are available on the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg143.htm

Notes to editors

1. These two pieces of guidance on preventing manual handling injuries form part of the HSC's Priority Programme on musculoskeletal disorders. The Priority Programme aims to reduce the incidence of work-related illness involving musculoskeletal disorders, and reduce the number of working days lost due to these disorders. HSE aim to achieve the targets in the programme by communicating effectively with all stakeholders (such as employers, employees and their safety representatives, and health professionals) to encourage ownership of the plan and its outputs, keeping them informed, and giving them opportunities to contribute, revising the strategy as necessary. For more about the MSD Priority Programme, and other useful information about MSD, see the MSD pages on the HSE website: www.hse.gov.uk/msd

2. Both guidance booklets were last revised before the Regulations were updated - L23 in 1998 and INDG143 in 2000.

3. Only a small change to the Manual Handling Regulations was made in the 2002 amendment regulations in order to better integrate a number of factors, from European Directive 90/269/EEC on the manual handling of loads, into the Regulations.

These factors (in Annex II of the Directive) are that workers may be if at risk if they:

• are physically unsuited to carry out the task in question;
• are wearing unsuitable clothing, footwear or other personal effects;
• do not have adequate or appropriate knowledge or training.

4. These were contained in Schedule 1 of the 1992 Regulations and are now included in a new Regulation 4(3). This amendment is mainly to improve clarity and does not introduce any new duties on employers.

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