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The Apex 2 back unit and shoulder straps seen from behind

Health and aged care services

Healthcare and aged care workers lift, reposition, transfer and support patients and residents throughout every shift, often with limited space, unpredictable movement and little opportunity to rest between tasks. Back injury is the most common workplace injury in the sector, and the physical demands don't reduce with experience.

The common roles at risk
  • Aged care worker
  • Personal care assistant
  • Registered nurse
  • Nursing support worker
  • Disability support worker
  • Ambulance paramedic
  • Patient transport worker
  • Home care worker
  • Health assistant
  • Hospital cleaner
  • Linen service worker
  • Orderly and ward assistant
  • Physiotherapy aide
A care worker steadying an older woman at her walking frame in a care home corridor
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The hazard

Where the load
actually comes from.

The load in health and aged care is often a person, and people are unpredictable. Workers regularly transfer, reposition, lift, support and mobilise patients and residents whose weight, mobility and level of cooperation can vary significantly and change without warning.

These tasks involve sustained force, bending, reaching and twisting, often in confined spaces around beds and care equipment, with limited room to adopt safe postures. Bathing, dressing, toileting, bed-making and moving clinical supplies add to the daily physical load. Staffing pressures, rushed work and fatigue across long shifts mean the cumulative strain on the lower back builds quickly and doesn't let up.

Reducing the risk,
and meeting the duty.

In Australia and other regulated jurisdictions, employers have a legal duty to identify, assess and control the risks of musculoskeletal disorders, including back injuries, arising from hazardous manual tasks. The focus of WHS legislation is prevention through risk elimination (if possible) and engineering solutions rather than reliance on lifting technique training alone.

Safe Work Australia
Reducing back injury risk and meeting WHS requirements in health and aged care services:
  1. Identify hazardous manual tasks
  2. Assess risk factors in those tasks SA2050 can assist organisations assess and quantify risk for each manual task
  3. Minimise risks using the hierarchy of control Apex2 is a mechanical aid designed to reduce risk when lifting and bending
  4. Provide information, instruction and training SA2050 provides comprehensive training and assessment of the Apex2 in the workplace
  5. Review control measures

The worker who leaves takes the relationship with them.

In health and aged care, the cost of a back injury is not just the claim. It is the experienced worker who decides the job is not sustainable, and the resident or patient who loses continuity of care when they go.

What one back injury costs
  1. An experienced carer on restricted duties, which in this sector means tasks that cannot easily be redistributed.
  2. A gap in the roster that casual or agency staff fill at a higher cost and lower continuity.
  3. A WorkCover claim in an industry where premiums are already high and scrutiny is constant.
  4. A worker who may not come back, and a vacancy that takes months to fill in a sector already short-staffed.
The other operations
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