Moving and handling policy

Direct Medics Ltd. recognises its responsibility to ensure that all reasonable precautions are taken to provide and maintain working conditions which are safe, healthy and compliant with all statutory requirements and codes of practice.

Direct Medics Ltd. recognises moving and handling as the transporting and supporting of loads by hand or by bodily force without mechanical help. This includes activities such as lifting, carrying, shoving, pushing, pulling, sliding or nudging heavy objects. In particular, it covers the lifting or moving of service users by staff.

Direct Medics Ltd. is committed to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of its staff, as far as is reasonably practicable, and of all other persons who may be affected by our activities including service users, their visitors and contractors. As all of these moving and handling activities carry a risk of injury if they are not performed carefully, it is a pre-requisite to registration with Direct Medics Ltd. that all nursing staff are fully trained in moving and handling and attend update training as required.

Staff duties

Staff are required to comply with the risk assessment requirements set out in the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 as well as the requirement in the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) (MHOR) to carry out a risk assessment on manual handling tasks.

In addition, employees have duties to take reasonable care of their own health and safety and that of others who may be affected by their actions. They must communicate with their employers so that they too are able to meet their health and safety duties.

Employees have general health and safety duties to:

follow appropriate systems of work laid down for their safety.
make proper use of equipment provided for their safety.
co-operate with their employer on health and safety matters.
inform the employer if they identify hazardous handling activities.
take care to ensure that their activities do not put others at risk.

In addition, no person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interests of health, safety and welfare in pursuance of any statutory provisions.

Employer duties

The client organisation's duty is to avoid Manual Handling as far as reasonably practicable if there is a possibility of injury. If this cannot be done then they must reduce the risk of injury as far as reasonably practicable. If agency worker is complaining of discomfort, any changes to work to avoid or reduce manual handling must be monitored to check they are having a positive effect. However, if they are not working satisfactorily, alternatives must be considered.

The regulations set out a hierarchy of measures to reduce the risks of manual handling. These are as follows:

avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as reasonably practicable;
assess any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided;
reduce the risk of injury so far as reasonably practicable.

Risk assessment for manual handling by staff

Staff should consider each task for risk of injury;
If a risk is identified, staff should next consider whether there is a way to eliminate the need for moving manually altogether. For instance, can equipment be used instead?
If the moving and handling task cannot be eliminated altogether, the specific risks involved must next be assessed. This is done in a similar way to any other health and safety risk assessment but the assessment does not need to be recorded provided it is easy to repeat;
Where a specific risk to injury is identified and moving and handling is unavoidable, then measures to reduce the risk must be introduced; e.g. the use of mechanical aids, changing the task to minimise the risk or altering the work environment to make moving and handling less awkward;
Any measures taken to ensure moving and handling safety must be in proportion to the risk and cost-benefit involved.

Staff injured at work

Moving and handling accidents are covered by RIDDOR (The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995). According to RIDDOR all moving and handling accidents and injuries should be recorded and also reported especially if they result in staff being absent from work for three days or more or involve faulty equipment.

All staff injured at work will receive appropriate support any staff injured as a result of moving and handling should see their GP as soon as possible.

The successful implementation of this policy requires total commitment from all staff. Each individual has a legal obligation to take reasonable care of their own health and safety, and of the safety of other people who may be affected by their own acts or omissions.