Managing Injury

Worksite assessment and suitable duties plans

Early return to the worksite is a key factor to a successful outcome for an injured worker. The duties that a worker is given must however match their level of function, be meaningful and assist with work hardening.

We can come to your worksite to assess your injured worker’s normal tasks and identify any tasks that he/ she could commence while he/she is still rehabilitating. We will then develop a suitable duties plan for the worker.

WorkCover schedules cover these costs

Acute physiotherapy treatment for work injuries

We can provide hands on treatment for injuries from their outset. Our staff have extensive experience in treating work and sports injuries.

Rehabilitation programmes

Commencing strengthening programmes early is the key to early return to work and your worker staying motivated about their recovery.
We offer strengthening programme s at our facility or we can set up programmes closer to the worker’s home.

Back pain rehabilitation programmes

We specialise in rehabilitation of back injuries. We use Pilates Equipment in back rehabilitation. Pilates is a safe form of exercise that can be commenced at an early stage after injury.

Functional capacity evaluations

These assessments are to quantify the injured workers ability to do functional tasks. They provide information about how much the injured worker can safely lift or push and pull. This information assists with returning an injured worker safely to meaningful work of say a medium intensity rather than having them on very light duties that will do little to recondition them for work.

All too often an injured worker is given work restrictions of say a 5kg lifting limit without this lifting capability being tested or quantified. A worker who must return to quite heavy work will not be gaining any strength increment from their daily work if they stay on very light duties. Testing an injured worker’s ability to lift often reveals that they could be placed on a heavier weight restriction of say 15 - 20kgs which would enable the worker to undertake more meaningful work and strengthen while working. Again WorkCover will pay the cost of these.

Ergonomic/human engineering assessments

The risk in some worksites may be the way in which the worker and their work interact, for example, poor layout in terms of height of work tasks, spaces and workflow can increase the likelihood of an injury.

We can assist in trouble shooting issues in your current worksite layout and can assist in finding solutions for these. We also assist in reviewing any plans you have for future expansion of plant and equipment to ensure that the operators and their equipment are going to interact efficiently and risk of injury is minimised.

Worksite manual handling risk assessments

We can assist you in identifying manual handling risk factors and will recommend strategies to reduce these risks through a number of solutions such as worksite layout, procedural changes, induction training and ongoing training and monitoring of worker performance.

If you are about to expand your business and have plans for new production lines, plant and equipment we can assist in assessing the plans to ensure the material flow & ergonomics are optimal.

Manual handling training

We can provide onsite training that is tailored to the type of manual handling endemic in your industry. Technique and problem solving is emphasised.
Further training for a worker after an injury may also be necessary to reinforce risk identification and good work technique.

Pre-employment functional assessments

Don’t be stung with a WorkCover claim for an old injury that your new worker brought with them to your workplace.
A functional pre-employment assessment is a shortened form of functional capacity evaluation that will identify whether a potential employee has any underlying musculoskeletal injuries or weaknesses that would place him/her at risk of injury on your worksite.