Posted By S Joyce
I work as a safety practitioner within the social care field. I have noticed that there is a tendency not to carry out the 'traditional' type of manual handling assessment of risks to back and other muscle injuries, but instead to rely on service user/individual client risk assessments. Most of these assessments are quite good in identifying the problems associated with work environment, the type and extent of person manual handling etc. However, there is very little on the individual limitations/capabilities of staff who move/handle clients, e.g. history of previous back injury, whether they have had manual handling training etc.

Can anyone who works in the social care field offer advice/guidance on what I should be looking for in these individual assessments in order to ensure the man. handling legislation is being complied with?

I would particularly like to know how you assess compliance with the regulations and any information of training specific to care support workers and others

Posted By B
I sympathise with your predicament. We are re-writing our MH policy and have found similar problems.

Bob: I have often asked for evidence of manual handling risk assessments in a service and been presented with about 20 for the service user, but none for the support workers, so I completely understand where you are coming from!

It is something that our health and safety committee is going to be discussing at our next meeting so I will keep you posted if we come up with anything new or inventive to try! At the moment we are relying on ensuring that there is comprehensive Manual Handling training for all staff, and information in the Health and Safety policy handbook, with generic risk assessments that can be adapted in specific circumstances (carrying shopping, pushing a person in a wheelchair, supporting someone to stand from sitting etc), in each service.

We use Safety Media videos in our training sessions and (according to our staff development department) these have good sections on moving and handling people. Obviously all staff need to be trained individually in the use of hoists etc specific to the service they are working in, but this can be done by more experienced members of staff.

The NHS Manual Handling Training Passport and Information scheme is a mine of information on what should be included in training programmes and being the NHS has a moving and handling people slant to it (rather than just how to pick up a box!).

I would also ask whoever in your organisation monitors absence to inform you of any one off work with a back/neck/shoulder injury (even if not work related) so you can contact their manager to do individualised risk assessments.

I apologise – I appear to be rambling here and probably haven’t actually answered your question. Feel free to contact me if you think anything I’ve said is of use.

Beth