Sederunt: B Davies D Mann T Waddell* J Hepburn* A Pill A Milne S Chisholm D Murray* J Gorgon * P Szawlowski R Greer B Stainton J Goddard N Doherty T Mellon A Thomson M McGillivray J Bronwyn(?)*

Apologies: K Paterson D Devey K McDonnell

Barry Davies opened the Meeting and explained that the usual Chairperson - Kirsten Paterson – was away on holiday, as was the usual meeting Secretary – Dave Devey. Barry was standing in for Kirsten. Minutes of the business part of the meeting would be taken by Dick Mann.

Barry welcomed everyone especially the new faces to the meeting. He further explained to all present that members of the District Executive could be identified by the named badges they are wearing.

Finally Barry reminded everyone to ensure that they had entered their names on the Sederunt before the end of the evening.

Barry pointed out that copies of the Minutes of the meeting held on the 5^th February 2004 – the AGM meeting – had been distributed within the room for the benefit of those who had not already received a copy. He asked for any comments; none being received the Chair then requested a Proposer and someone to Second the proposal that the Minutes of the 17^th meeting on the 5^th February 2004 be accepted as a true and accurate record of that meeting.

Proposed by: Sandy Chisolm Seconded by: Bob Stainton

*Post meeting note: The minutes that should have been proposed and seconded would have been the minutes of the 16^th meeting of the 6^th November 2003, with the AGM minutes being proposed and seconded at the next AGM (Feb. 2005). This point will be addressed at the next evening meeting to be held on 2^nd September 2004.

Barry explained to the Meeting that he had nothing to formally report. However, he pointed out that this meeting was to be the last held in the Gateway Centre for the session 2003/2004. The next gathering will be the Site Visit on the 3^rd June 2004, Tayside Fire Services new Training Centre and is due to commence at 2pm. Originally it was thought that numbers who could attend would have to be limited to 12 people, however, it has now been determined that more can join the visit and Barry requested that anyone else wishing to attend on the 3^rd June come forward after the meeting.

Dick Mann informed the meeting that, in the absence of Dave Devey, he had nothing to report to the meeting.

 5. Correspondence

Dick Mann apologised to the meeting explaining that, in the absence of Dave Devey he was not aware of any correspondence that should be drawn to the attention of the members present.

Barry introduced the Guest Speaker for the evening, Ms Nancy Hamilton from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in Edinburgh.

Nancy introduced herself and gave a brief background to her career to date. Nancy’s initial background was in nursing from where she progressed to specialise in the fields of Occupational Health and Health and Safety.

For the last 17 years she has worked in HSE’s Employment Medical Advisory Service (EMAS). She has a particular interest in Ergonomics and Manual Handling and is the specialist advisor on these matters for all of Scotland. She further advised that there are now only five employed in EMAS in Scotland and that includes one Doctor and three Occupational Health nurses. All except the Doctor are HSE Inspectors.

Nancy then proceeded to introduce the subject of her talk which was Manual Handling Assessment Charts (MAC) HSE publication INDG 383. She explained that these had been developed initially as a tool to assist HSE Inspectors when in the field to ascertain what if any manual handling assessments should be in place. It was felt that due to their success that they should be made available to Industry in general as a ‘user friendly’ tool to assess what manual handling assessments were required. This would aid in addressing the most common type of occupational ill health. She explained that with low back pain the longer a person was off work the harder it was to get back to work. Therefore an early prevention/intervention was required, the success of this would reduce costs to Industry and also assist HSE in meeting the ‘Revitalising Targets’ which Nancy reiterated for the benefit of those present.

Almost 1.2 million suffer from Work Related Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD’s), of these ½ have suffered for more than 5 years and approximately 9.9 million working days were lost per annum. The cost to the economy (95/96 figures) was £5.7 billion and this would be slightly higher at today’s figures. It can therefore easily be seen that this area of ill health needed to be addressed as a matter of priority.

There are several key messages with the MSD priority programme.

• There are things that can be done to prevent MSDs or minimise effects,
• They are cost effective
• But you cannot prevent all MSDs.

It is essential that appropriate management with real commitment and co-operation of management and employees is applied.

It is essential to know as soon as possible if something is going wrong, and we need to diagnose what is wrong with systems of work.

Proper treatment with proper control measures along with suitable rehabilitation is essential.

The MACs, as stated were initially an internal HSE document which were devised by a working party consisting of Inspectors and specialist ergonomists which were trialled by Inspectors as a tool to assist with risk assessments, these can only be used for inanimate objects and not for people.

Tasks must be broken down into three key elements,

• Lifting
• Carrying
• Team handling

The charts then provide an assessment guide for each of these elements. The risk classification for each element is colour coded e.g.

• GREEN – low level risk
• AMBER – medium level risk
• RED – high level of risk
• PURPLE – very high level of risk

In effect PURPLE (P) stands for prohibition.

Within the charts there are flow charts for each of the key elements previously stated and although these look daunting it is better to ignore the numbers and concentrate on the colours.

An example of an operation that had been investigated was given as Bagging Barley, this involved major twisting and turning to bag and excessive weight in the sacks.

The task was broken down into 5 elements

• Load weight
• Lifting height
• Environment
• Grip on load
• Postural constraints

Each of these elements was then assessed and duly scored/colour coded, areas looked at include weight and repetition, the hand distance from the lower back, the vertical lift region, trunk twisting & sideways, bending, postural constraints, grip on the load and the floor surface. In addition other factors e.g. extremes of temperature (hot/cold), strong air movements (draughts) and lighting conditions (dark/light/poor contrast), remember the time taken for your eyes to acclimatise when going from dark into light, were also addressed.

It is essential to remember to breakdown each task when observing any operation.

Nancy recommended the use of digital camcorders when undertaking any assessments, as this gave the opportunity to view and review if necessary the various elements involved in the operation being assessed.

Once each key element has been observed/assessed and scored each score is entered on the MAC score sheet. Obviously the aim is to achieve an all GREEN score but this is not usually possible and results are usually AMBER/GREEN.

The presentation of this score sheet can be used as a user-friendly method to explain to employers of the need to accept that modifications require to be put in place and that until these can be implemented look at changing the tasks.

Nancy then highlighted various publications that are available to assist assessors when undertaking manual handling assessments, she further informed the meeting that new Guidance on the Regulations, publication L23, had only recently been issued.

In closing Nancy summarised the completion of a MAC,

1. Observe the task
2. Consult employees
3. Select the appropriate type of assessment e.g. lifting, carrying, team handling
4. Follow the Guide.

After several questions regarding in the main people lifting Robin Greer proposed the vote of thanks.

Nancy was then presented with a gift as a token of appreciation from the district.