WIREDGOV

RoSPA’s annual occupational safety and health campaign #OSHtober will this year be raising awareness of the debilitating personal effects, and damaging financial effects, poor manual handling has on workers and businesses around the world.

Supported by Butcher’s Pet Care and Abingdon & Whitney College, and launching at the beginning of October, the campaign will be offering a range of free resources to highlight the benefits of good manual handling processes – and what can happen when these are not in place.

Dr Karen McDonnell, RoSPA’s occupational safety and health policy adviser, said: “Accounting for 41 per cent of all work-related ill health cases, and 34 per cent of all working days lost due to ill health, we need to be effectively tackling the root causes of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and encouraging employers to adopt a whole-person approach to prevention, towards sustainable working lives, because these types of accidents don’t have to happen.”

RoSPA will be producing tips, facts and statistics about manual handling across its social media and blogs, a webpage featuring a free e-book and infographics, and will be hosting Twitter competitions with the chance to win a free manual handling course – just follow @RoSPAWorkplace for more information.

Abingdon & Witney College is supporting this year’s #OSHtober after seeing a significant increase in occupational ill-health cases, including those from MSDs. After recognising this trend, a concerted effort has been made at the college to train staff and students, to make a difference to people’s health and the college’s finances.

Butcher’s Pet Care is involved with #OSHtober after its technical developer, Christopher Alger, took part in RoSPA’s Level 3 Manual Handling Trainers course. He now plans to implement his learnings and disseminate these to the rest of the workforce.

For more information on #OSHtober, see www.rospa.com/oshtober, our Workplace Safety blog, and @RoSPAWorkplace on Twitter.