SafeWork South Australia is urging businesses to rethink their strategies around lifting and other hazardous manual tasks in a bid to reduce body stressing injuries.
According to SafeWork SA, body stressing injuries are sidelining more than 5000 South Australian workers every year, resulting in average annual compensation costs in excess of $90 million.
The injury category, which includes muscle stress while lifting or carrying objects and repetitive stress injuries, has accounted for 36 per cent of all ReturnToWorkSA compensation claims since 2018.
There is also no requirement under work health and safety (WHS) legislation for businesses to train staff in lifting technique, but research has found that lifting technique training is not particularly effective in preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders anyway.
SafeWork SA said the most effective way to prevent workplace lifting injuries is to conduct a risk assessment of the hazardous manual task and where possible eliminate the risk.
“The best way to avoid a lifting injury is to avoid lifting altogether,” SafeWork SA compliance and enforcement director Brett Pfeffer said.
“There is often a better way of performing a hazardous manual task that eliminates or significantly reduces the risk of injury.
“Training has its place, but it should be focused on how to identify hazards, assess risks and eliminate them rather than how to lift.”
If eliminating lifting is not possible, then other control measures to minimise include:
- substituting heavy items for lighter ones or hand tools with electric tools or machinery to reduce force
- design the work to limit double handling or remove unnecessary work
- redesigning the workplace to limit how far items are carried, or need to adopt awkward postures
- implementing engineering controls such as lifting aids, trolleys, hoists.
- administrative controls such as safe work procedures, task rotation, breaks, and training
- personal protective equipment (PPE).
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