Managing Manual Handling & Becoming the Solution, Not the Problem.

Several weeks ago I put out a poll on LinkedIn following on from the announcement by HSE People naming me as the Occupational Health founding panel member. I was keen to try and quickly understand what the common consensus was amongst my network as to what the initial area of focus should be for discussion, and ultimately, action.

I had a sneaking suspicion that it would end up pointing towards manual handling. My instincts proved to be right, and the chosen area of focus was Musculoskeletal Disorders, raking in 55% of over 630 votes.

It's fantastic to see the rise in awareness of all matters relating to the 'health' side of our great profession, and I predict further great strides to be made in these areas. Whilst these areas are important, I've noticed that there seems to be a lack of prominent, progressive, and engaging activity in relation to the raising of awareness of manual handling related injuries, cases, and generally best practice principles.

Just some quick statistics for you:

• 500,000 work-related musculoskeletal disorder cases (new or longstanding) during 2019-20.
• Out of the 32 million working days lost over the previous year, 27% was due to MSD's. Still the largest percentage caused by 'physical' ill-health. Equating to nearly 9 million working days lost in it's own right.
• 152,000 workers suffering from a new case of work-related MSD's during the past year.

Although overall the trend appears to be slowing slightly in recent years, the sheer numbers involved is far too high for something that isn't particularly difficult to risk assess and mitigate. The way that we think about manual handling as the default simply needs to change. Selection of equipment, better planning of work, better investment in training and equipment, and ultimately a shake-up of organisational cultures are the orders of the day here.

Although very much in its infancy, I'm attempting to establish the Manual Handling Foundation. Now, in what guise this ultimately becomes I think is still very much open to interpretation and engagement amongst us as OSH peers. I envisage this to be something for the people, by the people.

This 'movement' or 'community' if you like, can be taken as far as we want it to, but it needs clear and concise action and people involved that genuinely want to be a part of something that is all about positivity, sharing best practice, helping each other, helping those already affected by MSD's, helping those potentially affected by MSD's by the nature of their work now before it's too late, and to effectively provide a community space and platform in which to share all this positivity and help win the hearts and minds of the key stakeholders within businesses to start thinking and caring about their employees and company representatives, by actually demonstrating a clear commitment to one of the very first and basic fundamentals (and legal requirements) that we all sign up to, 'ensuring the health, safety, and welfare at work of all his employees'.

I think a lot of the time many professionals can become precious about their documentation and there is not a willingness to share a good document. This could be a simple as a Toolbox Talk, Method Statement, Visual Aids, Workshop documents, Best Practice Guides, or similar. Obviously removal of sensitive information and company branding aside - what's the issue?

Don't you think it's funny that we all preach on what is good and bad and how difficult it can be to get 'buy-in' from stakeholders or how stigmatised the OSH industry can be sometimes but then we can all be like that too?

Surely as dedicated professionals that passionately care about the work we do it shouldn't just stop with the employees of the company that we work for? or your clients as a consultant? Surely it should extend out to EVERYONE, regardless of who they are, if they work for a competitor or a different industry, why should that matter? Does the risk to their health not matter as much?

Unless we share best practices and make them inclusive, then we're also part of the problem, right?

As they say, safety in numbers. So why not pool our resources, help those that need it and create a library of useful information for ALL to see?

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this topic. If you find it useful please give it a like or comment, or share around your network if you feel it may be of interest to others in your network.

Feel free to connect, follow me, or reach out and especially if you'd like to get involved with this MHF initiative - I really look forward to hearing from you!

Very interested also to hear from people that would be interested in becoming Admins for the MHF LinkedIn page, Helping write regular content, creating videos, sharing pictures/videos, raising awareness through other OSH publications and platforms, and anything else in between!

This could also be a great way to link in with one of my other great passions, mentoring. If I'm currently helping you or not, this may be a great opportunity for aspiring OSH professionals to get involved with something practical, build some networks, gain some experience and make their mark on the OSH world.

KR

"Working Towards Safetopia".

@linkedin #safety #healthandsafety