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Manual Handling Assessment
A manual handling assessment is an Occupational Therapist’s assessment of how a person is physically moved and transferred by the people who support them. It covers their mobility and weight-bearing status, the equipment and slings in use, and the risks specific to them. From that comes a safe, step-by-step method for each transfer, whether that’s bed to chair, into a vehicle or through the bathroom.
The result is a written manual handling plan that support workers and carers read, sign and follow. It’s the document a Supported Independent Living house or a family uses every day, so it’s written procedure by procedure, with worker actions and images for each step. The plan is valid for 12 months unless your Occupational Therapist says otherwise, and it’s reviewed earlier if the person’s needs change. At Optimum Health Solutions the review may be completed by an Occupational Therapist or a Physiotherapist.
Participants, family members and carers
For Support Coordinators, plan managers and SIL providers
Our Occupational Therapists run manual handling assessments across New South Wales and Tasmania, in the home and the other places where a person is transferred each day.
Every plan carries a support-worker endorsement sheet, so each worker signs that they’ve read it and received the practical training it calls for.
How do I fund a manual handling assessment?
NDIS funding covers most manual handling assessments.
NDIS: the assessment, the training and the written plan usually come out of Capacity Building funding, and our intake team checks which category your plan uses. Equipment is funded separately as assistive technology.
Self-managed, plan-managed or NDIA-managed: we work with all three.
Privately funded: you’ll get a clear picture of the costs before you book.
If you are not sure which funding applies to you, call us on 1800 678 647 or email hello@opt.net.au. We will sort it out before your first appointment.
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What a manual handling assessment involves
01
What are the steps of a manual handling assessment?
The assessment focuses on the person, their transfers and their equipment, in that order.
Your Occupational Therapist starts with the person’s diagnosis, how they communicate, their mobility status and their weight-bearing status, to decide what kind of transfer is safe.
We then consider factors like pain on movement, skin integrity, behaviours that can make a transfer harder, vision impairment, epilepsy, contractures or deformity, muscle tone, and if the person has a PEG or a catheter that has to be protected.
Next, every kind of transfer the person needs is assessed in their home environment, with the equipment already in use.
This informs a risk table which lists each identified risk beside the controls that manages it.
Everything the assessment finds feeds one document known as the manual handling plan
02
What is the golden rule of manual handling?
At Optimum Health Solutions the rule is “no lift, no injury”.
A person must not be manually lifted by another person, except in an emergency or a life-threatening situation, so mechanical aids do the lifting instead.
That single rule shapes the whole plan.
Every transfer method in it is written around the equipment that carries the person’s weight. Underneath that rule the plan sets out how to prepare for a transfer and the safe biomechanical principles the worker follows while doing it.
The evaluation report’s appendix shows a safe squat and lunge technique.
If you came here looking for correct manual handling technique, this is where it lives, written for one specific person, because a general technique guide can’t tell you how this person needs to be moved.
03
What equipment can a manual handling assessment recommend?
The plan records the equipment each transfer needs, and the assessment checks what’s already in place before anything new is suggested.
The list the plan template works from runs from simple to mechanical. It starts with slide sheets and a transfer walk belt, then a manual or power wheelchair, an Ambiturn and a Sara Stedy.
At the mechanical end sit a stand-up lifter and a full sling lifter, whether that’s a mobile hoist or a ceiling hoist.
Where a sling is used, the plan carries a full sling specification. It records the manufacturer, size and style, the review or expiry date, the loop colours for sitting and supine transfers, and the leg strap and arm position.
A new worker can then set it up the same way every time. If new equipment is needed, that becomes an assistive technology recommendation, and training on it is scheduled when it’s delivered.
04
What is in a manual handling plan, and who is it written for?
The plan is written for the support workers and carers who transfer the person, and they’re expected to read and follow it. It’s organised by procedure, so a vehicle transfer and a bed transfer each get their own section.
Each one records the person’s mobility and weight-bearing status, the equipment required, the sling specification, the participant considerations, and the risk table.
Then it sets out the staff responsibilities in manual handling, preparation and considerations, the safe biomechanical principles, and the “no lift, no injury” method, before a review date and the practitioner’s sign-off.
A disclaimer notes that changes to the person, their environment or their support arrangements can make the plan out of date.
At the back is the support-worker endorsement sheet, where each worker signs that they’ve read the plan, received the practical training it requires, and understand their duty of care. The standards that sit behind that duty come next.
05
What are the Australian standards for manual handling?
Manual handling in disability support sits under work health and safety law.
The plan’s staff responsibilities section references the federal Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and, in New South Wales, the 2019 Code of Practice on hazardous manual tasks.
Under that law a manual task becomes hazardous when it involves repetitive or sustained force, high or sudden force, repetitive movement, sustained or awkward posture, or vibration.
Moving a person can involve several of those at once. The employer’s duty is to identify those risks and manage them, which is where a written, person-specific plan does its work: it turns a general duty into a set of steps for one person.
For a Supported Independent Living provider, having each worker sign the endorsement sheet is also a record that the training the plan calls for has been done.
06
How long is a manual handling plan valid, and when is it reviewed?
The plan is valid for 12 months unless your Occupational Therapist specifies otherwise, and it must be reviewed no later than 12 months after the assessment date.
It’s reviewed earlier if that’s clinically indicated. The plan’s own disclaimer names the things that can bring a review forward: a change in the person, a change in their environment, or a change in the people and roles supporting them. In practice that means a new diagnosis, a change in weight-bearing status, new pain or skin concerns, a move to a new home or a new vehicle, or new equipment arriving.
The evaluation report states the validity of the report up front, so a Support Coordinator can see at a glance when the next review is due.
The review itself may be completed by an Occupational Therapist or a Physiotherapist, and it follows the same transfer-by-transfer method as the first assessment.
How our Occupational Therapists run the manual handling assessment
The assessment happens where the transfers happen. Your Occupational Therapist will meet the person and the workers who support them, look at each key transfer in the room it’s done in, and check the equipment and any sling already in use. They’ll ask what’s working, what feels unsafe, and which transfers cause the most trouble.
Between the visit and the plan, your Occupational Therapist will write up each transfer as a step-by-step table, with the worker action for every step and a diagram beside it. They’ll also complete the risk table and the equipment and sling details. Where new equipment is recommended, that’s written as an assistive technology recommendation so it can be funded.
The plan then goes to the person, their family and their support team, and training is delivered to the workers who’ll use it. Each worker signs the endorsement sheet once they’ve read the plan and had the practical training it requires.
Manual handling assessments through the NDIS
For NDIS participants, the assessment, the manual handling plan and the training of support workers are usually funded from the Capacity Building part of a plan, and our intake team confirms the category before the first appointment. Any equipment the plan recommends is funded separately as assistive technology.
NDIS
Referrals
14 clinics across NSW & Tasmania
Email us
hello@opt.net.au
Speak to us
1800 678 647
Get in Touch.
Where we offer manual handling assessments
Common questions about manual handling assessments
What are the 5 steps of a manual handling risk assessment?
What is the golden rule of manual handling?
What are the 5 manual handling principles?
What are the Australian standards for manual handling?
What are the 5 Ps of manual handling?
What is a risk assessment checklist?
Who can do a manual handling assessment?
Does the NDIS fund a manual handling assessment?
Reviewed by Sarah-Louise Higgins
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