ABSTRACT
Significant obligations are placed on employers and the self-employed with regard to all manual handling tasks in the workplace. The Regulations are the result of the European Directive on minimum health and safety requirements for the manual handling of loads where there is a risk particularly of back injury to workers (90/269/EEC). The Regulations replace all former provisions on the subject, and apply to all those at work regardless of their particular workplace. Previous legislation proved to be inadequate, being only applicable to certain work industries and difficult to interpret and enforce. It employed vague terms related to single lifts of loads; some regulations covering particular industries applied load limits, again for single loads. The Regulations concentrate attention on ergonomic solutions, and take account of a range of relevant factors including repetitive lifting. Upper limb disorders are not addressed by the Regulations.
