Safe Moving and Handling Made Easy Book (A5)

Description

Safe Moving and Handling Made Easy Book

Safe Moving and Handling Made Easy is a comprehensive, full-colour publication, authored and reviewed by industry experts.

Designed to complement a range of Manual Handling courses, the book facilitates learning with clear, accurate and easy-to-understand information.

•  Ideal for those attending courses covering the important principles of Safe Moving & Manual Handling.
•  Designed to be easy to learn from.
•  Simple, accurate information with lots of pictures and diagrams.
•  A logical and easy-to-understand layout

Conveniently published in A5 format

Controlling the risks

As part of managing the health and safety of your business, you must control the risks in your workplace. To do this you need to think about what might cause harm to people and decide whether you are doing enough to prevent harm. This process is known as a risk assessment and it is something you are required by law to carry out. A risk assessment is about identifying and taking sensible and proportionate measures to control the risks in your workplace, not about creating huge amounts of paperwork.

You are probably already taking steps to protect your employees, but your risk assessment will help you decide whether you should be doing more. Think about how accidents and ill health could happen and concentrate on real risks – those that are most likely and which will cause the most harm.

■ Think about your workplace activities, processes and the substances used that could injure your employees or harm their health. Health and Safety Executive Manual handling at work: A brief guide Page 3 of 10

■ Ask your employees what they think the hazards are, as they may notice things that are not obvious to you and may have some good ideas on how to control the risks.

■ Check manufacturers’ instructions or data sheets for chemicals and equipment, as they can be very helpful in spelling out the hazards.

■ Some workers may have particular requirements, for example, new and young workers, migrant workers, new or expectant mothers, people with disabilities, temporary workers, contractors, homeworkers and lone workers may be at particular risk. Having identified the hazards, you then have to decide how likely it is that harm will occur. Risk is a part of everyday life and you are not expected to eliminate all risks. What you must do is make sure you know about the main risks and the things you need to do to manage them responsibly. Generally, you need to do everything reasonably practicable to protect people from harm. Make a record of your significant findings – the hazards, how people might be harmed by them and what you have in place to control the risks. Any record produced should be simple and focused on controls. If you have fewer than five employees you do not have to write anything down. But it is useful to do this so you can review it at a later date, for example, if something changes. If you have five or more employees, you are required by law to write it down.

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