The Risks that Carers Run

A number of unrelated events have come together in the last couple of days to get me thinking about the risks that carers run when trying to move the person they care for.

Anybody who works in a job where they are lifting heavy weights receives manual handling training; the risks associated with the lifting are carefully assessed, and equipment is specified to minimise the possibility of injury to the lifter. Even so, musculoskeletal damage is common. Chatting to a friend who supplies stairclimbers (devices to carry a wheelchair user up and down stairs), I heard about the experience of a particular NHS Ambulance Trust who introduced powered stairclimbers and saw the rate of absenteeism due to musculoskeletal injury decline from 48% of the total to 6%, in an 18 month period. And this is amongst people who have had all the training designed to prevent them hurting themselves when lifting.

Another conversation with a long-term correspondent based in the US, who sells a cleverly designed lifting vest which makes manual transfers safer and more dignified for both parties, revolved around the costs of manufacturing in the States and labyrinthine systems of distribution in the UK, both of which tend to push the price of his product to a level where he feared it would be out of reach of potential customers. He said "For the life of me I could not understand why people would not pay to prevent back injuries to themselves and injuries to their loved ones."

To which the answer is probably they would, if they could afford it, or perhaps they would, if they understood both the risks and the alternatives. Which brings me back round to where I started. Organisations that employ people who are at risk of injuring themselves in the course of their work have a real financial incentive and legal requirement to measure and minimise the risks. But when it comes to family carers, who are estimated to save the NHS and social services some £87 billion a year on services that would otherwise have to be provided to the people they care for, who assesses and minimises their risks? Very occasionally, I hear about a manual handling training event aimed at non-professionals, but they are rare and not well-publicised.

Am I right to suspect that nobody wants to "find out" about carers running the risk of injuring themselves because they would then need to do something about it, and that would cost money? Even though keeping those carers fit and healthy is actually cheaper than replacing them when they are unable to carry on.

The final part of my injury/cost jigsaw was the story of former miners taking their former solicitors to court for not getting them full compensation for their inability to do various jobs around the house following damage to their hands caused by vibrating machinery. If a carer could point to some statutory body and demand recognition of damage to their health caused by caring, the risk assessors, equipment providers and manual handling trainers would be on the case in the next five minutes.