Regulation 68. of the general application regulations 2007 states, "manual handling of loads" means any transporting or supporting of a load by one or more employees and includes lifting, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving a load, which, by reason of its characteristics or of unfavourable ergonomic conditions, involves risk, particularly of back injury, to employees.

Duties of employer as stated in the general application regulations 2007.
Regulation 69.

An employer shall—
(a) take appropriate organisational measures, or use the appropriate means, in particular mechanical equipment, to avoid the need for the manual handling of loads by the employer’s employees, (In other words it is the duty of the employer to take all reasonable measures within the limits of their resources to eliminate where practical the need for employees to manually handle loads by introducing for example pallet trucks, trolleys, and by organizing the workplace to reduce the distance traveled where manual handling of loads by an employee cannot be avoided).

Employers must have a program for management of manual handling where the risks are significant and require it.

Hazards to look for when carrying out manual handling tasks