Pushing & Pulling Loads – RAPP Tools

Published 06 Dec 2022

uploaded by Chris Dodds | Sales & Marketing Manage at Thorne & Derrick 

All Content is Copyright of HSE & Original Information is here.

The HSE aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health.

Pushing and pulling of loads is a way to reduce or avoid manual lifting and carrying. Putting the load on a trolley and pushing it is one way of avoiding carrying.

So, when people push and pull instead of lifting and carrying, less effort is required, but there may still be a risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which you need to assess and eliminate or reduce.

Although you may think that the Manual Handling Operations Regulations only apply to the lifting, lowering and carrying of loads, they also apply to pushing and pulling.

This ‘pushing and pulling’ guide should help you comply with the regulations and control the risks to your workers.

A risk assessment tool for pushing and pulling operations (the RAPP tool) is available:

• It is a simple tool designed to help assess the key risks in manual pushing and pulling operations involving whole body effort.
• It is similar to the MAC tool and uses colour-coding and numerical scoring, like the MAC.
• It will help identify high-risk pushing and pulling activities and help you evaluate the effectiveness of any risk-reduction measures.
• You can assess two types of pulling and pushing operations using the RAPP:
  • moving loads using wheeled equipment, such as hand trolleys, pump trucks, carts or wheelbarrows;
  • moving items without wheels, involving dragging/sliding, churning (pivoting and rolling) and rolling.
• For each type of assessment there is a flow chart, an assessment guide and a score sheet.

NOTE: Since the RAPP tool was launched, our experience, supported by further testing, has indicated that the tool is not sensitive to the level of risk in some tasks (or parts of tasks) involving moving loads with hand pallet trucks or similar, with small wheels.

In these tasks, small irregularities (including debris) and small gradients in the floor surfaces, which would otherwise be assessed as low risk (Good G/0) under the A-7 Floor surface and A-8 Obstacles along the route factors, can have a very significant effect on the manual forces required. In these situations, the RAPP will tend to underestimate the level of risk, although the need for high force should be identified from looking at worker posture in factor A-2 Posture.

Therefore, a full, site-specific, pushing and pulling risk assessment may be preferable when assessing tasks (or parts of tasks) in locations with varying floor and environmental conditions. This is particularly likely for tasks that occur outdoors or can be affected by the weather, such as deliveries or loading/unloading in yards. Worker involvement in the assessment process is important as they have valuable knowledge of the specific risks of the task, particularly, for example, drivers who are experienced in delivery operations.

HSE has produced a pushing and pulling risk assessment checklist and an example checklist to help with your full risk assessments – contact HSE for further information.

Push Pull Tools

The range of Push Pull Tools manufactured by the Hand Safety Tool Company and distributed by Thorne & Derrick provide significant Health & Safety Improvements around site where “pushing and pulling” operations such as handling deliveries or loading/unloading in yards is commonplace. This download produced by the UK HSE enables the Risk Assessment according to Load Weight, Operation Frequency, Push/Pull Distances and other impacting factors – the range of tools to keep hands off loads, enable “hands-free” lifting, mitigate risk of load handing and prevent hand or finger injury are available in the UK from Thorne & Derrick.

ShoveIt Hand Safety Tool | Prevention of Hand & Finger Injury

The ShoveIt Hand Safety Tool is manufactured by Hand Safety Tools and stocked and distributed by Thorne & Derrick.

ShoveIt tools are designed to help users avoid hand injuries while working with suspended loads or manoeuvring objects. The tool ensures correct ergonomic body positioning for safe handling out of the line of fire, while enabling users to guide loads, move and position objects, as well as grab slings and taglines without physically placing hands on the item.

Thorne & Derrick distribute a range of Safety Tools from Hand Safety Tool Company designed to minimise hand injuries by keeping hands out of the line of fire.

Over a quarter of a million people suffer serious hand injuries each year. The Hand Safety Tool Company works hard to help to reverse that trend by creating No Touch Hand Safety Tools that keep hands off and away from potential injury areas. The range of Safety Products are the result of numerous conversations and in-field encounters over the last decade with key Health & Safety Officers and “boots-on-the-ground personnel” to ensure each tool produced does the most important job of all – helps every user to keep their hands.