Moving and Handling Policy for Domiciliary Care: The Complete Guide

Moving and handling is one of the highest-risk activities in domiciliary care. Care workers assist with transfers, repositioning, and mobility support in environments they do not control, often without the equipment that would be available in a residential setting. A robust moving and handling policy is not just a CQC requirement. It is essential for preventing injuries to both your staff and the people they care for.

This guide covers what your policy must include, the legislation it must reference, how to implement it in practice, and what CQC inspectors look for.

The Legislation Your Policy Must Reference

Your moving and handling policy must reference several pieces of legislation:

• Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended 2002): the primary legislation governing manual handling at work. Requires employers to avoid hazardous manual handling where reasonably practicable, assess risks that cannot be avoided, and reduce the risk of injury so far as is reasonably practicable.
• Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER): applies if your agency uses hoists, stand aids, or other lifting equipment. Requires equipment to be suitable, maintained, and subject to thorough examination at defined intervals.
• Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER): requires that work equipment is suitable for its intended purpose, maintained, and that workers are trained to use it.
• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974: the overarching duty on employers to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of employees so far as is reasonably practicable.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999: requires risk assessments to be carried out.

Risk Assessment Requirements

Every service user who requires moving and handling support must have an individual moving and handling risk assessment. This is separate from the general care plan risk assessment. It must assess the task (what moving and handling is required), the individual (their weight, mobility, cognitive ability, pain levels, and ability to cooperate), the load (what is being moved), the environment (space, floor surfaces, obstacles, stairs, access), and any equipment needed.

The risk assessment must be reviewed whenever the service user's condition changes, after an incident or near miss, at defined intervals (typically every three months for stable situations), and whenever the environment changes, such as a change of furniture or a move to a different property.

In domiciliary care, environmental risk assessment is particularly important because you are working in the service user's home. You cannot control the environment in the same way you can in a care home. Narrow doorways, stairs, thick carpets, pets, and cluttered rooms all affect moving and handling risk.

Training Requirements

All care workers who carry out moving and handling must receive training before they carry out any moving and handling tasks. This training must include both theory and practical components. Online-only training is not sufficient for moving and handling because workers need to practise the techniques under supervision.

Training must cover the principles of safe moving and handling, how to carry out a dynamic risk assessment, how to use equipment including hoists and stand aids, what to do if a service user falls, the importance of following the individual moving and handling plan, and how to report concerns or incidents.

Refresher training should be provided at least annually. More frequent refresher training may be needed for workers who carry out complex moving and handling tasks or who work with service users whose needs change frequently.

Competency assessment must accompany training. A care worker who has attended a training course but has not been observed carrying out moving and handling safely in practice is not competent. Your training records must show both the training completed and the competency assessment outcome.

Equipment Management

If your agency supplies or uses moving and handling equipment, your policy must cover how equipment is selected, how it is maintained, how often it is inspected and by whom, the requirement for LOLER thorough examinations (every six months for equipment used to lift people), how equipment faults are reported and managed, and who is responsible for ensuring equipment at a service user's home is safe to use.

In domiciliary care, equipment is often provided by the local authority or NHS rather than the care agency. Your policy still needs to address this. Your staff are using the equipment, so they need to check it is safe before each use and report any faults. Your policy should state clearly what your workers do if equipment in a service user's home appears faulty or unsafe.

What to Do When a Service User Falls

Your policy must include clear procedures for managing falls. This includes what the care worker should do if a service user falls during a visit, when to call emergency services, how to assess the person after a fall before attempting to help them up, the use of falls management equipment such as inflatable cushions, post-fall monitoring requirements, and how falls are reported and analysed for patterns.

Under no circumstances should a care worker attempt to lift a service user from the floor manually unless there is an immediate risk to life. This is a common cause of back injuries among care workers and must be explicitly addressed in your policy.

What CQC Inspectors Look For

Inspectors assess moving and handling under the Safe key question. They will check that your policy references current legislation, that every service user with moving and handling needs has an individual risk assessment, that care workers are trained and assessed as competent, that equipment is maintained and inspected, that incidents are reported and analysed, and that care workers can describe the correct procedures when asked. For broader guidance on what documents CQC inspectors review, see our safeguarding adults policy guide.