Controlling Risks from Manual Handling Tasks: The Role of the Specialist Ergonomist in Support of Health and Safety Inspectors in the U.K

摘要

Manual handling is a major cause of accidents and work-related ill health in the U.K. A pilot project has been undertaken to ensure premises visited by inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had effective means of controlling the risks from manual handling and to assess the benefits of providing dedicated specialist ergonomics support to inspectors. An ergonomist carried out a briefing and joint visits with 25 inspectors to 49 industrial premises to examine high risk manual handling operations (typically, frequent and heavy lifting). Inspectors were allocated a number of further similar premises to visit. A system of 'easy access' ergonomics support was set in place, this enabled inspectors to obtain advice and expert opinion as and when required, backed up by short and practical reports, a summarised example of which is included in this paper. A total of 84 tasks have been investigated, 62 (73 %) of which now have effective risk control measures in place. The remaining tasks are undergoing further follow up action. To facilitate implementation some premises which were in contravention of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 were issued with legal notices requiring compliance (10 Improvement Notices (IN) and 4 Prohibition Notices (PN) issued). The project was successful in terms of ensuring the premises had effective controls to reduce musculo-skeletal disorder associated with manual handling. Initial analysis of the results suggest that the provision of front line ergonomics support is helpful to inspectors tackling manual handling problems.