Posted By Amanda Brooks Hi all, Does anyone know of the legislation that requires all people handling slings to be marked with the manufacturers original safe working load. I've looked in Loler and Puwer but can only find wording to say the sling needs to be marked with a safe working load, not that this must be the original manufacturer's marking. Any ideas folks? Amanda

Posted By Bill Elliott Amanda - people handling slings are subject to laundering to ensure cleanliness & to assist in minimising cross contamination and as such the manufacturers marking invariably become illegible. As part of the six monthly LOLER checks they should be tested for SWL and remarked by your provider. Part of the problem with this however is maintaining the new SWL for the 6 month duration again as a result of the laundering process. Hope that helps

Posted By ColinPink Hello The way i managed this in community hospitals and homes was to try and make sure the hoists where always weaker than the slings i.e. most could hold 25 stone and the hoist only lift 19 stone. the hoist swl load never fades. The slings always lost all information as they were cleaned and shapes and sizes denote size of person rather than weight limit. then as part of the loler checks safe working load was re-added during the monthly recorded visual check if it was fading. For very heavy patients slings and hoists stay together. Not 100% fool proof i have to admit, but destroying slings when the data faded would be very expensive. The alternative is to just use single patient disposable slings but that will be expensive. In four years as a patient handling advisor accross a massive community patch, the only slings that failed during a lift had been tampered with by either a staff member or family member.