Manual Handling Training 

Manual Handling Training 2020

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 is 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 weight of a load is important, though the law does not set specific weight limits.

In some cases, you must provide information about the weight and position of the centre of gravity of each load, if there is a risk of injury and it is reasonably practicable to do this.

Training can be important in raising awareness and reducing risk, but it won’t ensure safe manual handling on its own. You should first design the manual handling operations to be as safe as reasonably practicable. You should also monitor and review procedures to make sure workers understand and apply them.

Training should be relevant to the type of work carried out and should cover:

• manual handling risk factors and how injuries can happen
• how to use mechanical aids
• how to carry out safe manual handling, including good handling techniques
• systems of work relevant to the worker’s tasks and environment
• practical work so the trainer can identify anything the trainee is not doing safely and put it right

The content of any training in good handling technique should be tailored to the tasks the workers carry out.