Lighten the load

This year's European Week for Safety and Health at Work (22-26 October) will take "lightening the load" as its theme, with the aim of tackling musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and manual handling issues.

MSDs account for over a million cases of work-related ill health every year, with 190,000 new cases reported to the HSE last year.

For this year's campaign, the HSE has promised to boost its training initiative for safety reps, producing support materials that will facilitate risk assessments.