Hi all We are a corporate company based in the city of London. Our floor support staff are involved with delivering post, stationary, reams of paper and just your typical office type stuff. They all received regular manual handling training and are supplied with trolleys pallet trucks etc. Do we need to carry out manual handling assessments for this kind of work? IMHO it's an everyday low risk routine task that has no significant hazards. We have a very low accident rate from this work and no health issues to date.

I would recommend reading through L23 guidance on the MHOR92 http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l23.htm Appendix 3 in the guidance gives you numerical guidlines, which can be used as a filter to determine which manual handling task requires a further assessment. You can carry out a very basic screening assessment to eliminate the low risk tasks which may or may not cover the activities your staff carry out. I think it is important to at very least have this initial screening assessment to demonstrate you have considered the manual handling tasks asked of your employees.

Mike, You have already done a manual handling assessment - it is contained in your original post. Just write it down for future reference. The only thing I can see that needs adding to it is how you deal with individual capability, eg if someone has an injury or health condition that affects their ability to do the job what do you do to protect them.

Mike, I was always told never to answer a question with another question but here goes..... On what basis did you decide to deliver manual handling training? How did you decide there was a need for such training without carrying out an assessment? I thought that the main purpose of a risk assessment was to identify the hazard, assess the risk and then decide what one was going to do about it e.g. deliver some training? Moving on: Does training take into account the use of the trolleys, trucks etc? Have the risks associated with moving these around the building been assessed? Hope this helps Phil