Work health and safety guidance for NDIS providers

Information for NDIS providers about their duties and responsibilities under NSW work health and safety (WHS) law.

Work health and safety law promotes the health, safety and wellbeing of workers, NDIS participants (participants) and others involved in the provision of disability services and support.

The federal government funds the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). It aims to give people living with a disability choice and control over the support and services they need.

On this page:

Types of NDIS providers

A NDIS provider is an individual or organisation that delivers support or services to people living with a disability. Under the NDIS Act, NDIS providers can operate as registered or unregistered.

Providers can operate in various types of business and employment arrangements, including:

  • independent contractors/sole traders
  • partnerships
  • trusts
  • registered business entities such as Pty Ltd companies
  • online platforms.

NDIS Code of Conduct

NDIS providers, and anyone employed or engaged by a NDIS provider, must adhere to the NDIS Code of Conduct. It sets out clear and enforceable expectations for ethical conduct in the delivery of supports and services.

To support this, NDIS providers must ensure workers complete the ‘Quality, Safety and You’ online training module. It explains the obligations of workers under the NDIS Code of Conduct from the perspective of NDIS participants.

Registered NDIS providers must follow the NDIS Practice Standards to maintain their registration. These specify the quality standards registered NDIS providers must meet to provide supports and services to NDIS participants.

Visit the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) website for more information.

WHS laws in NSW

Along with the NDIS Code of Conduct, providers and workers have a legal obligation to follow WHS laws.

The legislation (law) that applies in NSW is the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017.

WHS laws aim to protect the physical and psychological health and safety of workers and others in the workplace.

A workplace can be any place where work is being undertaken. When NDIS providers or support workers work in a participant’s home or provide services such as transportation to a participant, these spaces are considered workplaces.

WHS laws are enforced by a WHS Regulator. A WHS Regulator’s role is to provide advice and information on WHS, monitor and enforce compliance with WHS laws and work with the community to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses. The WHS Regulator in NSW is SafeWork NSW.

As a regulator we want to ensure that workers and participants are protected, workplaces are safe and people aren’t put at risk from the work being undertaken. Our belief is that safer work leads to safer care.

Understanding WHS law

Under WHS law, everyone within a workplace has a responsibility to keep themselves and others safe, so far as reasonably practicable. This means to the best of their ability and capacity.

The WHS Act places the main responsibility of managing health and safety risks at work on a ‘Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking’ (PCBU).

A PCBU is any entity or individual operating a business or undertaking that has management or control of the workplace and the work being done. A PCBU can also be a worker if they are involved in completing work for the business. An example of this is a sole trader.

NDIS provider responsibilities

NDIS providers, or PCBUs, have the main responsibility for managing WHS risks in the workplace. This is called your primary duty of care. Providers are expected to:

  • be familiar with WHS laws
  • take steps to ensure a safe work environment for workers, the NDIS participant and others.

NDIS providers have the following WHS responsibilities and obligations in the workplace:

  • provide a safe work environment for workers, NDIS participants and others
  • ensure workers are appropriately trained and competent in their tasks
  • ensuring that workers are provided with all necessary tools and equipment for their role or tasks they complete
  • establishing and maintaining effective consultation mechanisms with workers and other stakeholders such as NDIS Participants, their nominees or representatives.
  • consult with workers, the NDIS participant, their nominee or representative and any other PCBUs involved about health and safety
  • conduct risk assessments and implement risk control measures in consultation with workers and any other PCBU with overlapping duties
  • provide information, instruction, and training to workers and participants on safety policies and procedures for the work being undertaken
  • report notifiable incidents to the WHS Regulator such as deaths, serious injury or illness of a person or a dangerous incident, including a ‘near miss’
  • have a workers compensation policy if they employ workers
  • making sure workers receive information about potential safety risks and incidents
  • keeping an injury register. This is a written record of an injury or incident that has happened while work was being completed.

NDIS providers and workers should work with the participant, their nominee or representative to identify potential WHS risks and ensure any risks are eliminated or minimised at any site where work is occurring, as far as is reasonably practicable.

SafeWork NSW has created some templates and tools to help you do this.

At times, there can be multiple PCBUs in a workplace. When this occurs, PCBUs must consult (talk) with each other to manage risks and ensure all PCBUs are meeting their duties and responsibilities under WHS law.

Participants, nominees, child representatives or support coordinators may also be considered PCBUs under WHS law. Often, they have shared WHS duties with the NDIS providers they have engaged.

Visit our Work health and safety guide for NDIS participants for more information.

Managing risks

Examples of WHS risks workers may face include:

  • muscular stress from manual handling tasks (including lifting or transferring a NDIS participant)
  • slips, trips and falls
  • working alone with a NDIS participant and in unfamiliar environments
  • psychosocial risks, such as exposure to high job demands, low job control, poor support, remote or isolated work or harmful behaviours (for example harassment, conflict, violence and aggression).

As a PCBU your responsibility is measured against what you can reasonably do. Examples of reasonable measures are:

  • reviewing your work environment or layout to allow your workers to work in a more comfortable position
  • implementing a ‘check-in’ system, such ascalls to the worker at certain times, when working with a new participant or in unfamiliar environments
  • a duress alarm to manage the risk to workers who work alone.

This process is called risk management.

Risk management can be broken up into the following steps:

  1. Talk with the NDIS provider and workers about possible WHS risks when doing tasks or activities. Together you can look at the work environment for possible risks it may introduce. They may be able to identify issues or suggest safety improvements you haven’t thought of. SafeWork NSW’s Home Safety Checklist (PDF, 135.48 KB) or Home Safety Risk Assessment (PDF, 205.97 KB) can help you do this.
  2. Look at how the risk can be eliminated or minimised. You should always try to eliminate a risk first before minimising it. For example, storing items regularly used by workers at a waist-height shelf, instead of overhead, eliminating the risk of falling objects.
  3. Make changes to address the risk identified. Assess the changes to ensure that no new risks have been introduced and that the change is practical for the workers or yourself. If it is not safe or practical, then start the process again until you find a solution that works.

WHS should not be hard. Simple and direct ways to address WHS risks are usually the best.

If you get stuck, you can contact SafeWork NSW for assistance.

Worker responsibilities

NDIS workers also have WHS responsibilities. They must take reasonable care of themselves and not do anything that would affect the health and safety of others at work. They must follow any reasonable health and safety instructions from their employer.

Workers have WHS responsibilities to:

  • work safely
  • ask if they are not sure how to safely perform the work
  • use personal protective equipment (PPE) correctly
  • report injuries and unsafe and unhealthy situations to the person with management and control of the workplace or work activity.
  • take reasonable care for their own health and safety
  • take reasonable care for the health and safety of others
  • comply with any reasonable instructions, policies and procedure given by their employer, business or controller of the workplace.

Reporting incidents to SafeWork NSW

Some serious injuries or near-misses must be reported promptly to SafeWork NSW. These are called ‘notifiable incidents’. This is in addition to a providers responsibility to notify the NDIS Commission.

A notifiable incident is when:

  • a person dies
  • a person experiences a serious injury or illness
  • a potentially dangerous incident occurs.

Examples of these incidents are available in Safe Work Australia's Incident notification information sheet.

Significant penalties apply if PCBUs don’t notify SafeWork NSW of a notifiable incident. If you employ workers, you must also notify your workers compensation insurer within 48 hours.

When you call us to report an incident, we will ask for:

  • an overview of what happened, including date, time and location
  • information about anyone who was injured, including their date of birth, contact details and their relationship to you (worker, site visitor, volunteer, contractor, member of the public)
  • information about the injury, including treatment received and hospital details, if they were taken to hospital
  • your details, including business information and contact details
  • immediate action taken to make the site safe
  • further safety action taken, or actions that will be taken, to prevent the incident happening again.

You must take care not to disturb the incident scene until an inspector arrives at the site, or until direction is given by an inspector. You can help an injured person and ensure safety of the site.

Incidents can be notified 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by calling 13 10 50.

Further guidance and information

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