Health monitoring is an informal, non-statutory method of surveying your workforce for symptoms of ill health, including lower back pain. This type of occupational health management system can enable you, as an employer, to be aware of health problems and intervene to prevent problems being caused or made worse by work activities e.g. manual handling. Another important role of health monitoring is to feedback into a system that reviews the current control methods in place.

Health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks. These health checks may be required by law for employees who are exposed to noise or vibration, ionising radiation, solvents, fumes, dusts, biological agents and other substances hazardous to health, or work in compressed air.

See links below to HSE website, including useful guides:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/wbv.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/index.htm