OH&S compliance blitz

Victoria’s WorkSafe office today commences a statewide blitz on the State’s eight highest claiming sectors and residential care is third in the firing line.

By Keryn Curtis

Residential aged care providers in Victoria have been put on notice by WorkSafe that their workplaces are part of a statewide safety blitz starting today, targeting the state’s ‘most dangerous’ industries. WorkSafe says the campaign will focus on enforcement and potential prosecutions will be fast-tracked to send a clear message that unsafe work practices will not be tolerated 

The ‘hard-line’ approach is targeting eight industries which account for one quarter – approximately 7,000 – of all workplace claims in Victoria in 2010. The other high-claim industries being targeted include food manufacturing and processing; wood product manufacturing; fabricated metal; transport equipment manufacturing; plastics and rubber manufacturing; road transport and warehousing and storage. Among these industries, residential care services rank third highest in the number of claims after food manufacturing and road transport.

Maria Batchelor is Director of WorkSafe’s Public Sector and Community Service Industry Program division which is responsible for workplace safety in aged care facilities in Victoria.

She says, despite clear policies, guidelines and a number of resources, workplace safety claims in residential care have remained static for several years.

“Slips trips and falls make up the majority of claims,” says Ms Batchelor. “It’s predominantly around lifting and handling people.”

“But the third largest group of claims are around occupational violence. These might involve physical injury resulting from caring for people with challenging behaviours due to dementia or other cognitive conditions, but also includes stress.  Stress can result from dealing with difficult clients, interpersonal relationships with other staff or bullying situations for example – they are all forms of psychological stress.”

Ms Batchelor said it was also fair to say that the number of reported claims probably did not accurately reflect the real extent of workplace problems in residential care.

 “Many people have issues with whether or how they claim and there are no doubt other incidents occurring that people don’t claim for.  For example, in many small workplaces [in any industry] there might be some hesitancy in claiming for something like bullying,” Ms Batchelor said.

The nub of the problem
The broad problem for residential care providers, says Batchelor, is not that they don’t have all the right policies and procedures – but that sometimes they are not well implemented.

“Some might have the right lifting equipment but there hasn’t been any training or enough training in how to use it.  Or the equipment might be stored in an inconvenient place, be awkward to use or may not be well maintained, so you might go to get it out and discover, for instance that the tyres are flat.

“It’s the whole package that is needed – having the right tools, in the right place, good training, proper maintenance and then making sure people are actually using them,” she said.

A key element in effective workplace safety, says Ms Batchelor, is consultation both with staff and product suppliers.

“Employers need to consult with staff and make it clear what the equipment needs to be used for and how to use it.  They also need to ensure that any equipment they buy will actually suit the purpose in that particular workplace.

“A lot of people will negotiate with the equipment supplier to trial a particular piece of equipment before they purchase it to make sure it’s right for that situation.  Factors like floor surfaces, room layouts and the health status of the people it will be used for need to be considered in the suitability of a piece of equipment.”

Be prepared
Ms Batchelor says the key purpose of the announcement of the ‘safety blitz’ was to give Victorian employers in these high risk industries the opportunity to get ahead of the WorkSafe inspector visit to address any compliance problems.  

“Most inspectors will ring to make an appointment but under the Act they have the power to attend without an appointment,” said Ms Batchelor.

“The inspector will ask to see the manager and also the occupational health and safety representative.  They will have discussion and walk around the facility to see what systems they have in place.

“They can also talk directly to staff to see that they know what the policy and procedures are.

“The message is that residential care employers should go through the aged care OH&S policy and make sure they get everything done. Talk to their employees and see if there is anything they need to do and fix it,” Ms Batchelor said.

Further information:

The new Aged Care OHS Compliance kit  is available for residential aged care providers to use prior to WorkSafe’s visits to ensure that they are complying with their duties under the OHS Act.

This OHS compliance kit covers the major injury-causing factors seen in aged care in Victoria: repositioning people in bed, transferring people from beds and chairs, transferring people for toileting and bathing and assisting people who have fallen. 

There are also a number of short video clips here demonstrating safe ways to transfer residents. 

For information about compliance and enforcement matters, see the WorkSafe Compliance and Enforcement Policy.  This provides an overview of the legislative framework within which WorkSafe operates and sets out how WorkSafe’s Constructive Compliance Strategy is applied to its enforcement and prosecution activities. 

Tags: aged-care, occupational-health-and-safety, residential-care, worksafe-compliance, worksafe-victoria,

4 thoughts on “OH&S compliance blitz

  1. There is not any staffing levels in Aged Care, so therefore staff are often pushed to their maximum capacity to work harder when we are short staffed. Causing staff to have accidents and be totally run down. Staffing levels would reduce Work cover claims.

  2. The aged care work force is older. The workcover system encourages staff to claim for issues that are a direct result of the ageing process. In addition many aged care workers do not work under direct supervision, exposing the residential aged care industry to a higher incidence of fraudulent claims. These issues need to be addressed in addition to ensuring safety in the workplace.

  3. Typical!! Send the message of fear and intimidation to aged care providers and their staff that a blitz for more regulation and compliance is coming our way. The focus should be around parity in pay and working conditions. Training and L&D. Interesting to see the note that the policies and procedures are in place, but???
    The industry should look closer at the recruitment and induction quality and process. There is much more that underlies this issue. Typical moronic govt regulators.

  4. I work in age care so I can tell you that there are many staff working with injuries and staff who have had operations that will never completely heal so if there are fraudulent staff I have not yet come across them but it is true that we as assistant nurses many times get more work to do than time to do it in and we usually work under staffed and are told that we have the right amount of staff and as the work loads become heavier the time alloted stays the same and many leave work feeling that their bodies have been put through a grinder. Why do people do it?? the question that should be asked is Why can’t A.I.N’s get a better deal. Why do age care facilities put many things into place only just before an aduit. I love audits, audits force our facilities to put in place almost instantly problems that are ignored when asked by staff. requests.

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