When it comes to manual handling at work, there are specific regulations that your employer needs to abide by. These are the covered by The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. Under 4.—(1) of the regulations, each employer shall:
(i) make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all such manual handling operations to be undertaken by them
(ii) take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to those employees arising out of their undertaking any such manual handling operations
So, any manual handling activities you undertake should be risk assessed by your employer to determine how to best manoeuvre the load(s) and what prerequisites need to be taken in to account. As the title of this article suggests, we will look at your eligibility to make a claim in the event no equipment was provided to you for a manual handling activity.
First and foremost, the opportunity for your employer to identify the need for any equipment is in the risk assessment. So if they have never done a risk assessment and equipment could have been supplied, they may be in breach of the regulations straight away in failing to do a risk assessment. Proving a breach of the regulations has caused you an injury is the recipe you need for making a claim.
If a risk assessment was done and the need for equipment wasn’t raised, and you are injured because you believe equipment should have been supplied, we need to look at the reasonableness and eligibility of providing equipment. If you have been injured because you have been asked to carry large stacks of files from one place to another on a constant basis, could a trolley have been provided to make the job much more risk free? If so, this is one argument we could use.
What about lifting large items between two or more people because of the weight and size? If a pallet / pump truck could have been used instead, there could be an argument here as well. Ultimately the need for equipment is often linked with the scale of a manual handling job. If you carry maybe one or two files a week that weigh around 10kg and you have received manual handling training, you shouldn’t have ended up injured unless you did something wrong. But having to transport 100 files a day makes the task excessive and can put a strain on your back. This is when equipment is key.
So if you have been injured at work and you feel the reason is down to your employer failing to provide you with equipment to assist with a manual handling activity, get in touch with us and we will see if we can help you out with a claim. Call our free claims help line on 0800 634 75 75 today.
