Risk assessment is the employer's job, but workers take part. This lesson explains how the HSA suggests a manual handling task is assessed and what the "guideline weights" mean.
Who does it
In most cases the employer can carry out the assessment or delegate it to people in the organisation. The people who assess must be trained in assessing manual handling risk, understand the law and be able to recognise risk factors. If the expertise is not available, the employer must get the help of a competent person and stay involved. The worker doing the task should always be part of the process, because workers know how the job is really done.
The stages
The HSA's 2005 guidance describes these stages:
- Identify the manual handling tasks to be assessed and plan a schedule.
- Observe the task and describe it: how it is done and its sub-tasks.
- Collect task data: load weights and sizes, how many lifts, how often and how long, distances, heights, the layout of the area, postures, aids provided. Tools: scales, a tape measure, photographs, talking to the workers.
- Identify the risk factors, using Schedule 3.
- Develop solutions and an action plan: eliminate or reduce the risk factors, with the workers consulted. Record why a control was chosen.
- Review whether the controls worked.
Guideline weights
The Regulations set no weight limits. The HSA guidance does offer guideline weights, based on a diagram that divides the body into zones. They help to screen tasks:
- Decide which zones the lifter's hands pass through. If they pass through more than one, the smallest figure applies.
- If the load is below the figure, the task is within the guideline. If it is above, there is an increased risk and the task needs a closer look.
Important limits:
- The figures assume the load is readily gripped with both hands and the lifter is in a stable position.
- They are for infrequent operations, up to about thirty an hour, with rest breaks and no forced pace.
- Figures must be reduced for repetition. The HSA guide gives about 30 % for a lift once or twice a minute, about 50 % for five to eight times a minute and about 80 % for more than twelve times a minute.
- They are not a safe limit. Weight is only one factor. Repetition, posture, the place and the person all count.
Other rules of thumb in the HSA guidance
- If any dimension of a load is more than about 75 cm, it is likely to be an increased risk and too large for one person.
- Holding a load at arm's length puts about five times the stress on the lower back.
- If a load is carried further than about 10 metres, the carrying demands start to dominate and lifting capacity falls.
- Avoid lifts that start or end at floor level or above shoulder height, and store heavier loads at waist height.
Reading the result
A task over the guideline is not automatically banned, and a task below it is not automatically safe. The result tells the assessor where to look harder. The aim is always to avoid, or to reduce the risk with changes to the load, task, place or equipment.
What you can do
- Tell the assessor what makes the task hard.
- Say if loads vary, if the floor is poor, or if the work is rushed.
- Ask what was found and what will change.
Key points
- The assessment follows stages from observation to review, with the workers involved.
- Guideline weights are screening figures, not legal limits or safe limits.
- Repetition lowers the figures; so do arms-extended and high or low lifts.
- The assessor needs training or a competent person's help.