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Posted By srd
Can someone point me to any specific regulations that govern the amount of time that an employee can reasonably be expected to remain on their feet while working, and whether or not seating should be provided?
Stephen.
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Posted By Pat Burns MIOSH, RSP - SpDipEM - MIQA
I would suggest that this would be covered as part of your risk assessment into the whole job activeity iaw the MHSW Regs. You do not say what the job entails etc.
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Posted By Bill Elliott
Regulation 11(3)of the Workplace Regs will help here. "A suitable seat shall be provided for each person at work in the workplace whose work includes opearations of a kind that the work (or a substantial part of it) can or must be done sitting".
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Posted By srd
Pat - The job in question is operating a printing machine.
Bill - There are occasional gaps in production while waiting for printing plates to be made available to the press operators. Once a job has started printing there are regular checks of the printed copy made, but in between checks there may be a few minutes of waiting time.
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Posted By Pat Burns MIOSH, RSP - SpDipEM - MIQA
To go back to the original question, there is no specific legislation that states how long you can remain on your feet for standing or walking.
As I said it would be down to your specific risk assessment. If this identifies fatigue as a hazard then suitable and sufficient measures need to be taken to reduce the risk of injury from this hazard to as low as reasonably practicable.
Provision of a seat is one way but others could include job rotation, frequent breaks from the task doing something else etc.
As Bill says the Workplace regs can help you out with provision of seating but without seeing the workplace layout one cannot judge on line whether this is practicable or not.
In my last job we provided seating to our engravers, CNC operatives but not those working on lathes that required lots of manual activity. We therefore encouraged the staff to adopt their day to vary the tasks they had to allow frequent breaks from standing at the lathe for long periods of time as well as their own tea and lunch break.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
To roughly summarise my understanding of the law and associated HSE guidance: Where work (or a substantial part of it) can or must be done sitting, a suitable seat must be provided; where workers have to stand to carry out their work, suitable seats should be provided if the type of work gives them an opportunity to sit from time to time; and suitable and sufficient rest facilities must be provided at readily accessible places - which should include suitable seats for use during breaks. Beyond that it's a matter of general duties under HASAWA for employees and others to be safe and without risk to health and risk assessment.
The TUC have recently issued a report on this subject entitled 'Standing Broblem' in their 'Hazards' publication.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
- or even 'Standing Problem'!
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Posted By srd
Thanks all. The job (or a substantial part of it) can not be done whilst seated, so It's the risk assessment route. The Hazard article was useful.
Stephen
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Posted By Martin Taylor
there doesn't to be any discussion on the use of antifatigue amtting on this thread - this will certainly help minimise problems with prolonged standing but as you say the idea of introdcuing siting to some jobs is not practical and can actually introduce mmre problems for upper body discomfort
Martin
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Posted By Ken Taylor
Does anyone have personal experience of benefit from 'anti-fatigue' matting. I wonder whether this could be a diversion from providing seats and proper breaks.
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