Posted By Adam Jackson I work(ed) for a poultry breeding company and they have quite a big musculoskeletal issue due to the handling of heavy birds. (Circa 80lbs, several hundred of which have to be picked up every day). We had used Osteopaths for Industry in the past to do surveys but didn't find it a wholly satisfactory solution. Nothing wrong with OFI, just it didn't quite solve the problems. So we took the route of finding someone from the farms who was interested in progressing his career and, handily, interested in the remedial massage / osteopathy area. We sent him off to get a professional qualification in remedial massage and he now works on that for 1 day a week and does his normal job for the rest. Its been a huge advantage to us in a few ways: 1 - The lads on the farms know him, and more importantly know that he is familiar with the work they have to do therefore can understand their problems. 2 - We have an in-house resource now for musculo-skeletal managament - he occasionally makes redommendations based on the cases he is seeing, and on job surveys which he sometimes does following a specific case. We've had some excellent advice from him on this. 3 - It went down very well with employees generally in they saw the company investing in someone from among their ranks rather than bringing an outsider in.

Posted By Alison Melrose Daniel, I work for a H&S company that does research and consultancy and have produced reports for clients on ergonomic issues. Generally we are approached by a company with a specific issue and they come back to us if anything else occurs (or if we have raised an issue such as training and they want us to carry that out as well). This may be after an enforcement notice from the HSE or after sickness absence of an employee. There are several companies who can offer ergonomic advice - The Ergonomic Society would be able to provide you with a list of reputable organisations. Alternatively, you might consider hiring someone (either full or part time) as a H&S officer. I'd slant any job advert that Ergonomic knowledge is required. Not sure if I've been any help. Good luck anyway, Alison