CPD – Reducing the Risks when Moving and Handling

Our everyday tasks usually include moving and handling things from one place to another. It is as simple as moving groceries into your home, doing your laundry, or even cooking. Also, the stuff you carry may vary as lightweight or heavyweight. Most people see this activity as a simple thing, but it is actually not. There are health risks if you don’t handle it properly, especially if the object is heavyweight.

A work environment like construction or a warehouse requires you to do moving and handling. Usually, people who work in a construction site have to move heavy objects like equipment or materials. Similar to people who work in a warehouse, they have to relocate things like consumer goods, raw materials, and finished products. Since these activities can cause a lot of injuries, then you should know how to do it properly.

What is moving and handling?

Moving and handling is an activity of safely lifting, carrying, pushing, and generally moving objects or people. This needs proper techniques to prevent injuries. Oftentimes, it is related to correct posture and body mechanism. The UK government makes rules and guidelines about this activity to ensure everyone’s safety, especially for workers. This is because there are plenty of work-related incidents caused by unsafe practise.

People can catch injuries not only from heavy lifting, pushing, or pulling. It also happens because of the number of times you have to lift or carry an item, the distance, and the height you pick it up or put it down. Furthermore, it happens if there is any twisting, bending, stretching, or awkward posture. Thus, moving and handling causes you to have:

• Back pain: Often due to improper lifting technique
• Muscle strains and sprains: Overextension of your muscles and ligaments that causes injuries
• Hernias: When internal organs push through a weakened muscle wall
• Joint pain: Pain that happens in the joints, usually around the shoulders, hips, and knees

Course Synopsis

The CPD – Reducing the Risks when Moving and Handling course will help the participants understand the proper technique when relocating objects. Since this activity can cause serious injuries, the participants can minimise it and have a safe and healthy work environment. By the end of the course, they will have the understanding of:

1. Understanding the risks of manual handling
2. Safe lifting and handling techniques
3. Risk assessment skills
4. Use of mechanical aids

With this knowledge, the learners will produce better productivity and effectiveness while working. In addition, it is to protect themselves and their colleagues while moving and handling objects. Building awareness of this is important to ensure their health and avoid any legal problems. If you are interested in maintaining your body’s condition and creating a safe working environment, this course provides you with the information.

Curriculum Outline

This course will help you understand the theoretical and practical keys when moving and handling materials. It includes recognising the risks and the techniques to reduce them. Also, you will have the ability to assess the hazards and make a decision if they need mechanical aids or not. From this course, you will learn about:

• Introduction to manual handling
• Health and safety laws
• How the body works
• Risk assessment
• Safe techniques

To ensure participants' understanding, this training will be provided with interactive questions and activities like real-life scenarios. Most importantly, this course is based on knowledge from experts in this field. As a result, they can be more protected in their working environment without having to worry about the risks.

Enrolment Criteria

The CPD – Reducing the Risks when Moving and Handling course is designed for a wide range of workers and industries. Usually, the relevant roles that are suitable for taking this course are construction workers, logistics staff, and healthcare workers. Participants need to be in good physical health since this activity involves lifting, carrying, and relocating objects. Other than that, they need to have basic knowledge of workplace health and safety.

Reasons to reduce the risks from moving and handling

Creating a risk-free work environment from any moving and handling dangers is crucial to protect the workers and the employers. When workers get injured while doing this task, employers can experience many drawbacks, from financial problems to injuries. In doing so, here are the key reasons why risk reduction in this activity is important:

Preventing injuries to employees

From these activities, you can catch musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). It happens when you use improper techniques when moving and handling, which leads to back injuries, strains, sprains, or repetitive strain injuries. If you have long-term exposure to improper techniques, this can be a lasting physical problem that affects your quality of life. Also, it can cause immediate accidents, which can result in severe injuries because of dropping heavy items, slips, or falls. 

Learning about moving and handling with proper techniques enables you to create a stable working condition. Moreover, you need to understand your ability and improve your team coordination. If you feel that you don’t have the capacity to do the tasks alone, especially if it includes heavy objects or awkward loads, then you should communicate with others. It will minimise the risks of injuries.

Reducing costs for business

If you don’t follow this standard, the chance of injuries increases, which leads to more sick days and time off work. This will be bad for the business because you need to maintain productivity and effectiveness in the workplace. Besides that, as an employer, you will have insurance claims that you have to pay. This will also reduce the risk of damaging tools, machinery, and goods.

On the other hand, the UK government requires employers to ensure the well-being of their employees. They have made it clear with the Manual Handling Operations Regulations and Health and Safety at Work Act. Failing to comply can result in fines, lawsuits, or legal action. In addition, it will damage your reputation. These problems are bad for the business’s cash flow.

Building a positive workplace culture

You can help improve the workplace culture with the understanding of moving and handling objects. It builds the commitment to encouraging safety practises, which will build respect among other workers. Also, it helps to have a culture of responsibility and awareness. Most importantly, this will protect your and your coworkers' mental health. An unsafe environment can cause stress and anxiety for employees, in particular, if they fear injury or are unsure of their safety during tasks.

Safe and effective moving and handling with CCM

Even though moving and handling objects are everyday activities, most of us don’t realise that they cause health risks, especially if they are not performed correctly. In work environments like construction and warehouses, the risks increase significantly from lifting heavy objects. Those can lead to injuries like back pain, muscle strains, and joint issues, which impact both employees and employers.

If you are interested in addressing this situation, the College of Contract Management will help you with CPD – Reducing the Risks when Moving and Handling course. From this lesson, you will get the knowledge and skills to perform tasks safely and efficiently. In doing so, you will have an understanding of safe lifting techniques, risk assessments, and using mechanical aids.

You can prevent injuries, improve productivity, and ensure compliance with health and safety regulations. Moreover, not only can you reduce expenses, but it also helps promote a positive workplace culture and builds values of safety and teamwork. Investing in this training will safeguard employees' physical and mental well-being while supporting the company’s success.

For the time being, the CPD – Reducing the Risks when Moving and Handling course is still in development. When this course is ready, we will update it through this course page. However, you can look for other interesting courses that are available on this site. If you have a problem or question, we encourage you to talk to the CCM team through email.