manual handling for health care workers

Manual handling for health care workers is frequently delivered using content written for warehouses, and the mismatch is not subtle.

General training teaches lifting from the floor with a straight back and a clear path. Health work involves confined spaces, beds at fixed heights, bathrooms with no room to position yourself, and a person who has to be moved regardless of whether the ideal posture is available.

It also teaches that you can decline an unsafe lift. In care that is true and much harder, because the alternative is somebody left in discomfort or at risk.

Training worth running uses your own settings and equipment, and gives workers a route to escalate when a task cannot be done safely as it currently stands.

Safe Work Australia covers hazardous manual tasks. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s manual handling training for disability support and healthcare workers and manual handling course.