You should arrange for a competent person (someone who is trained and experienced in risk assessment) to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all manual handling operations undertaken by your employees. The manual handing risk assessment pro-forma may help you achieve this.
It is not necessary (or desirable) to assess each and every manual handling task. Group together tasks of a similar nature (e.g. lifting from waist height to a trolley, pallet truck or other surface) taking care not to be too general, which could mean under-estimating risks posed by the combination of factors — see Note.
Note — when grouping tasks, you need to appreciate that while the task, load and individual capability may be the same or similar, the risk could be very different because of the environment.
For example, moving items weighing a maximum of 10kg from a pallet truck to a workbench can be regarded as a generic task, as it covers a wide range of possible activities. If this activity is conducted outside, where it may be cold, wet and/or windy and may involve the use of bulky coats and thick gloves, the risks associated with the weather and extra clothing are likely to be higher because of the risks of the load slipping through the hands and the possible instability of the person completing the task.
Be careful not to overlook tasks conducted by employees who are not normally located on-site — e.g. external sales personnel, service engineers and similar. For these assessments, it may be necessary to consider such factors as:
- loading and unloading items (which may be bulky or heavy, or both) in areas that may be very restricted for space;
- in the winter, inclement weather may make the task more risky, for example, because of ice, than if it was conducted in the summer; and
- is the type of car suitable for the tasks in hand? E.g. using a saloon car instead of an estate car to transport a heavy and/or bulky item could significantly increase the risks of the loading and unloading.
All risk assessments should be recorded together with the recommendations for reducing the risk so far as is reasonably practicable. The manager of the area concerned should be involved with the assessment and in taking the recommended actions, and should retain the assessments.
An alternative approach, the Manual Handling Assessment Chart Tool is available from HSE. However, the assessor still needs to fully familiarise themselves with all aspects of the HSE tools before using them and must be a competent person.