The recently published Manual Handling Assessment Chart leaflet, known as the MAC Tool, is designed to help businesses produce the risk assessments for manual handling tasks required by legislation. It was published as part of the Health and Safety Executives campaign to help prevent musculoskeletal disorders caused by work activities.
While it is not meant to be all encompassing it does not cover pulling and pushing tasks, for example it goes into a lot of helpful detail on the handling aspects it covers, and gives a methodology to use when rating the general risk of certain activities. Once they have this rating, businesses are directed to various resources for advice and help with the steps needed to reduce the risk.
Manual Handling Aspects Covered by the MAC Tool
The MAC Tool uses traffic light colour coding of green, amber and red to indicate low, medium and high risk, plus purple for very high risk. It assists with assessing lifting, carrying and team handling in three sections. Each has an assessment guide that that demonstrates the indicators that place the activity in the different colour bands.
Examples include a graph that indicates the level of risk for the weight and frequency of a lift. It looks at the height to be lifted; the distance of the lifters hand from his body; whether she needs to twist or bend, whether lifters can maintain a natural posture, and so on. The environment is also considered: temperature; lighting; state of the floor; any obstacles in the way of carrying. For team handling, the way they communicate and coordinate the task is shown to be important.
Scoring Recommendations
Each of the three sections also includes a flow chart which lists how to score the different indicators, once they have been placed in a colour band. Each colour per area earns a numerical score. These can then be inserted, and totalled, in a score sheet that can be printed as a basis for the risk assessment.
If you use the MAC Tool, which is highly recommended, remember that you also need to consider other factors that will be unique to your business and your personnel. And dont forget that simply assessing risk is not enough to keep your staff safe from injury. When you are aware of the risks, you have to take action to mitigate them. Alistair Bromhead Ltd offers high quality manual handling training courses and consultancy that can provide the help you need.