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Health and Safety Executive (HSE)

Health and Safety Executive (HSE)


Manual handling causes over a third of all workplace  injuries. These include work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) such as pain  and injuries to arms, legs and joints, and repetitive strain injuries of  various sorts.

The term manual  handling covers a wide variety of activities including lifting, lowering,  pushing, pulling and carrying. If any of these tasks are not carried out  appropriately there is a risk of injury.

Why is dealing with manual handling important?

Manual handling injuries can have  serious implications for the employer and the person who has been injured. They  can occur almost anywhere in the workplace and heavy manual labour, awkward  postures, repetitive movements of arms, legs and back or previous/existing  injury can increase the risk.

What  do I have to do?

To help prevent manual handling injuries in the workplace, you should avoid such tasks as far as possible.  However, where it is not possible to avoid handling a load, employers must look at the  risks of that task and put sensible health and safety measures in place to  prevent and avoid injury.

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