• Physically demanding work on a countryside estate was causing risks of back pain and other disorders
• Changes to the way the work was organised reduced the risks, improved morale and efficiency, and cut down on sickness absence.

The maintenance of a large country estate was carried out by teams of people working in remote locations.  The demanding nature of the work, often in adverse weather, was giving rise to manual handling accidents and there was a high sickness absence rate.

Handling heavy stones before the interventions

To tackle these problems, risk assessments of each of the major work activities were made.  Changes to ways of working were identified to improve health, safety and efficiency.  For example:

• Regular team talks were held to identify risks, get ideas and better co-ordinate the different groups of workers;
• More use was made of specialist contractors for certain tasks like drystone walling;
• Improved use was made of work equipment and mechanical aids;
• Better training was provided for tasks being done by the estate workers, with more use of job rotation where appropriate.

Following these changes, which cost less than £6,000 to implement, there has been a 20% reduction in time off due to musculoskeletal disorders.  Use of contractors has also proved cheaper than using estate staff for specialist tasks.  The payback period for these changes was less than 9 months.

For a detailed economic analysis of this case study, see HSE Research Report RR 491