Aged care

This page is about the risks aged care workers face and provides resources about how to prevent injuries from occurring.

The Aged Care sector includes workers who provide care, physical assistance, and supervision for the elderly in the home, residential settings, privately funded care, or hospitals.

The risks

Aged care workers face many risks in the workplace, including:

  • muscular stress from hazardous manual tasks and patient handling
  • slips, trips and falls
  • workplace violence and aggression
  • psychosocial hazards where aspects of the job, including role overload, low job control, conflict or poor workplace relationships and bullying, can cause a stress response.

 

If you're experiencing bullying or other psychosocial hazards in your workplace you may raise the issue with SafeWork NSW by completing our request for service form. We can help within the scope of our legislative responsibilities. Read about how we can help or call us on 13 10 50 for more information.

Resources

Risk identification resources have been developed to support businesses, employers and workers identify hazards in the workplace and prevent injuries from occurring:

Incident of a worker in Health Care and Social Assistance sustaining a musculoskeletal disorder.

Working in people's homes

When work is conducted in a home, the home is considered a workplace.

Watch the ‘Working in People’s homes’ webinar to learn about your WHS obligations when providing care and services in someone’s home.

During the webinar, we introduce the:

Use these resources to help you to identify risks in the home environment. In the webinar we provide practical guidance about when you should use them.

Grey fleet

What is grey fleet?

Grey fleet refers to the use of privately owned vehicles for work-related purposes. This may include travel between clients, sites, or other work locations.

Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), there is no distinction between company-owned and privately owned vehicles used for work. Any personal vehicle used for business is considered a workplace.

Duty of care obligations

Organisations must ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers using grey fleet vehicles.

This includes:

  • ensuring vehicles are safe, roadworthy, and fit for purpose
  • confirming drivers hold a valid licence and are competent to drive
  • identifying and managing WHS risks associated with vehicle use
  • implementing safe driving policies and procedures
  • providing training and guidance on safe vehicle use
  • consulting workers about road safety risks and controls
  • monitoring compliance with WHS and road safety requirements
  • maintaining systems for incident reporting, investigation, and corrective actions.

Resources on using grey fleet

 

Working at external venues

Clients frequently need assistance from providers or workers to go to external venues. These venues can be medical appointments, social events, park visits, workplaces or any other location away from the home. When a worker helps a client at an external venue, this becomes their workplace under work health and safety laws. This includes travel to and from the venue.

Providers, Support Workers, and Clients (or their representatives) must take reasonable steps within their control to ensure health and safety at external venues. To help plan and manage these visits safely, use our external venue safety checklist (PDF, 206.92 KB). The checklist helps you to make safe decisions before, during and after these visits.

Labour hire and agency workers

Labour hire workers, also known as agency workers, are workers who are directly employed by a PCBU, such as an aged care nursing agency, which then ‘on-hires’ them to perform labour for a different or ‘host’ PCBU.

Both the aged care nursing agency and host PCBU have obligations under the WHS legislation.

Host PCBUs can use the Work Health and Safety checklist (PDF, 756.09 KB) when inducting new agency workers to their workplace or if changes to the workplace require workers to be re-inducted.

Learn more about labour hire.

 

Contact SafeWork NSW to arrange a workplace visit by one of our trained Inspectors. Our Inspector will conduct a hazard identification inspection with your workers and managers, and recommend changes to existing practices or the work environment to reduce the risk of injury.

Events

View the SafeWork NSW events calendar.

 
Safety information for your sector

On this page

Managing harms

The nature of the work in this sector presents specific hazards for workers. It is important you know what the hazards are in your workplace so you can assess the risks they pose.

Find a list of common hazards and learn how to manage the risks below.

SafeWork NSW activities

Industry action report

SafeWork NSW has released a practical, co-designed guide to help employers address burnout, an escalating issue in the HCSA sector. This Industry Action Report offers clear, evidence-based strategies to manage burnout risks at the organisational level, where the biggest impact can be made.

Drawing on local and international research, the report highlights key drivers like excessive workloads, poor culture, and low peer support. It reinforces employers’ legal duty to manage psychosocial hazards.

In the end, safer work leads to safer care.

Download the report (PDF, 1880.72 KB).

When to notify SafeWork NSW

If there is a serious injury, illness, dangerous incident, or death relating to staff, customers or visitors to your worksite or your place of employment (even if it's off-site), you must report it to us immediately.

Incidents can be notified 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by calling 13 10 50. If you're unsure of whether to notify, use Safe Work Australia's Incident notification information sheet to help you decide. Read more about notifying SafeWork NSW.

Codes of practice and your legal obligations

Healthcare and social assistance industry

PCBUs in the health care and social assistance sector can refer to the Healthcare and social assistance industry Code of practice. The Code includes practical examples relevant to hospitals, aged care, and disability support services, helping duty holders manage common WHS risks.

Hazardous chemicals

Exposure to chemicals is 100% preventable. Without the proper controls chemical exposure can cause cancer, respiratory illnesses, skin and eye irritations, as well as fire and explosion-related injuries.

Our Hazardous Chemicals Code of Practice (PDF, 1171.43 KB) to help you manage hazardous chemicals in the workplace.

Manual tasks

For many businesses, manual tasks are an important part of getting the job done. Some of these tasks can be hazardous and are often the most common cause of workplace injuries.

Our Hazardous manual tasks Code of Practice (PDF, 1499.23 KB) can help you create a safer work environment.

Psychosocial hazards at work

NSW businesses need to manage exposure to psychosocial hazards and risks to psychological and physical health and safety at work.

Our Managing psychosocial hazards at work code of practice can help you manage psychosocial hazards at work.

Managing the work environment and facilities (remote and isolated work)

Download SafeWork NSW's Code of Practice for Managing the work environment and facilities (PDF, 422.29 KB).

Resources

Translated resources

There is a range of support and information available to you if you’re faced with a difficult situation at work.

The getting support at work pocket guide (PDF, 182.07 KB) is your starting point to finding the support you need. It is available in the following languages:

Visit our translated resources hub for other print, web and multimedia resources.

Videos

This video discusses making the health and safety of workers a priority within the health care and social assistance sector.

Subtitles are available in the following languages: Arabic, Nepali, Punjabi, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Filipino (Tagalog) and Vietnamese.

This video explains how we help the health care and social assistance sector provide safer work, safer care.

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