Manual Handling Case Study 11Patient Full Body Lift

Lift to Change a Mattress

On Screen Text: Carers lifting a bed-bound patient in order to change a mattress

Scene 1:
The scene begins showing a patient in a bed surrounded by five care staff. Four carers manually lift the patient up 18inches, taking the full weight of the patient, they hold the patient in this position while another carer pulls out the mattress from underneath the patient and places this mattress at the side of an adjacent bed. This carer then gets a new mattress and places it under the patient. Once the mattress is fixed in the correct position, the four carers lower the patient back down onto the new mattress

On Screen Text:
Need to carry out a risk assessment of this task 

• Look at how the job is carried out
• Collect information: task, load, patient’s needs and mobility etc.
• Identify risk factors with the job
• Make changes to improve the job

On Screen Text:
Risk Factors/Problems

Scene 2:
Still image of character in the bed taken from scene 1, and showing the four carers holding the patient above the mattress

• Individuals weight outside the guidelines
• Physical effort is too strenuous
• Body in an unstable posture
• Sudden movement of the load
• Prolonged physical effort
• Uncoordinated lift
• Patient handled at a distance from the trunk

On Screen Text:
The new system of work

Scene 3:
The scene starts by showing the patient positioned in a hoist, there are four carers in the scene, one carer is operating the hoist, the second carer guides the hoist and the third and fourth carers are responsible for removing the old mattress and replacing it with a new mattress. The hoist is raised which allows the mattress to be replaced.

On Screen Text:
Manual Handling : Assess to avoid, reduce or reorganise