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Manual handling assessment charts (the MAC tool)

Date of publication:
2019
ISBN:
9780717667109
Series code:
INDG383(rev3)

The Manual Handling Assessment Charts (MAC) is a tool to help users identify high-risk workplace manual handling activities.

Employers and safety representatives can use the tool to assess the risks posed by lifting, carrying and team manual handling activities. It will help you understand, interpret and categorise the level of risk of the various known risk factors associated with these activities. MAC has a numerical and colour coding score system to highlight high-risk manual handling tasks.

This version has been updated, following an extensive period of research, to reflect the latest scientific knowledge and our experience of how the tool is used in the workplace. It includes new illustrations, new team handling categories and weight limits, a more comprehensive score sheet, screening questions to check which assessment you should do, and space to list your control measures.

Although there have been some changes to categories and scoring, the main messages about the actions employers and workers should take to prevent risks have altered very little since the previous 2014 version. There is no change in policy or regulation.

Note: This version of the MAC tool (published March 2019) is an update of the one published in November 2018. Several changes have been made to the scoresheet, but the main text has not been changed.

Link URLs in this page

  1. Publicationshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/index.htm
  2. HSE Bookshttps://books.hse.gov.uk/
  3. Download a free copy - INDG383https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/indg383.pdf
  4. Buy this product - INDG383https://books.hse.gov.uk/bookstore.asp?Action=Book&From=SearchResults&ProductId=9780717667109
  5. Manual handling at work: A brief guide https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/indg143.htm
  6. Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended). https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/books/l23.htm
  7. Assessment of Repetitive Tasks of the upper limbs (the ART tool) https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/indg438.pdf
  8. Managing upper limb disorders in your business: A brief guide for employers https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/indg171.htm
  9. Upper limb disorders in the workplace https://www.hse.gov.uk/PuBns/books/hsg60.htm
  10. Musculoskeletal disordershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/index.htm
  11. Manual handling assessment chart (MAC) tool - websitehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/mac/index.htm
  12. HSE Books +44 (0)333 202 5070https://books.hse.gov.uk/
  13. Translated leafletshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/languages/index.htm
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Updated: 2021-03-22