The health and safety department at Daniel Thwaites PLC was keen to adopt a more robust approach to the management of manual handling tasks among its workforce. It hoped this would lead to a general reduction in the number of manual handling incidents and accidents affecting its brewery staff. It therefore commissioned Pristine Condition to deliver the appropriate training programme.

What services did Pristine Condition provide?

Having visited Thwaites’ Blackburn brewery to assess the manual handling requirements of its staff, Pristine Condition devised a bespoke ‘Elite’ training programme that was delivered to all staff in 2006. This training included theory and practical sessions and both elements were conveniently delivered on-site and based around the specific activities of the workforce. Each session lasted approximately 3 hours.

This initial training was followed up with ‘coalface’ tuition. This involved a Pristine Condition trainer visiting individual members of the workforce in their own working area to review any specific issues where applicable. A small number of staff were then given additional training to support the programme and deliver suitable induction training to new starters. These members of staff then received full training during Pristine Condition’s next maintenance visit.

Posters and safe systems of work literature were provided to the site to reinforce the key principles taught by Pristine Condition and serve as a constant reminder to the workforce.

What have the results been?

Before Daniel Thwaites PLC commissioned Pristine Condition to provide a suitable training programme for its staff, the number of entries in the brewery’s accident book for manual handling incidents stood at 27 between 2001 and 2002, 24 between 2002 and 2003, 30 between 2003 and 2004, 27 between 2004 and 2005 and 25 between 2005 and 2006. But in the 24 months that followed the implementation of the Pristine Condition ‘Elite’ training programme, the brewery slashed the number of entries in its accident book for manual handling incidents to only four per year.

What is the customer reaction?

‘The Pristine Trainers interact well with our staff and offer practical solutions. They give individually tailored explanations that our staff understand and buy in to. It is an ethos of doing what we do safely rather than imposing theoretical limits and impractical solutions'.

Janine Leadbitter