Musculo-skeletal injuries have, according to official statistics, been decreasing slightly since 2009, but no employer can afford to ignore a problem that is resulting in over 150,000 new cases a year – and certain areas of the country are clearly bucking the national trend.
Frances Molloy, chief executive at Liverpool consultancy Health@Work, says: "We see a lot more of musculo-skeletal problems, because employers aren't carrying out the necessary risk assessments they should be. Some don't seem to realise that health and safety legislation requires them to be conducting display screen assessments, which include work-based assessments - and checking people have the right chairs and desks."
An assessment by a suitable occupational health doctor or nurse can often save hundreds of pounds being spent on unnecessary additional equipment, because an existing chair may be quite adequate if properly adjusted. But there are clearly situations in which ergonomic chairs are necessary.
Beth Johnston, group HR director at consultancy Personal Group, says: "We have had two employees during recent years who have been able to get quite a lot of relief from having specialist chairs. One had a long-standing back problem before joining us and the other changed jobs within our firm, from a field-based role to a largely sedentary one. Without these chairs, which only cost a few hundred pounds each, they wouldn't have been able to perform their roles and their condition would have deteriorated." Many safeguards that can be introduced to protect against musculo-skeletal problems in fact cost nothing.
Regular movement to prevent the body from stiffening up can, for example, be increased by not having waste bins next to desks, having only one photocopier per office and encouraging the use of stairs rather than lifts.
Pamela Gellatly, CEO of Healthcare RM, says: "Unfortunately, the implementation of the Manual Handling Regulations in 1992 has resulted in people being taught that lifting is bad for you, but if you are conditioned and physically active, you are more likely to avoid injury and not have problems with pain.
"A lot of people nowadays are not taking appropriate exercise. There needs to be a mixture of strength, flexibility and cardiovascular exercise and it must be conditioned to the sort of work the employee is doing and to address any potential imbalances," Gellatly added.
Even something as straightforward as encouraging the use of headsets when phoning can make a significant difference. For example, the results released this January of a study conducted by Plantronics and Anglo-European College of Chiropractic have shown physical comfort can improve drastically by replacing the telephone handset with a headset. Half of respondents doing this found that head, neck, shoulder and back pain totally disappeared, and two-thirds of the remainder reported a decrease in such pain.
Once musculo-skeletal problems have actually arisen, there is a clear trend towards using surgery only as a last resort, particularly with back problems.

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