The AIHS will be publishing a series of news stories through October to support the four themes of National Safe Work Month. The first week focuses on WHS fundamentals, and gets back to basics by unpacking the fundamentals of WHS. There are a number of fundamentals of good WHS practice, according to Safe Work Australia and industry leaders, who said one of the most important is taking an evidence-based approach to proactively managing WHS risks.
There has been a 56 per cent increase in workers’ compensation claims for assaults and exposure to workplace violence since 2017-18, according to a recent Safe Work Australia report. It found that there were 53,139 accepted workers’ compensation claims for being assaulted and 12,721 accepted claims for exposure to workplace or occupational violence over the past 10 years.
Australia loses 41,194 work years annually due to work-related injury, disease and mental health conditions – the equivalent of more than 41,000 lost jobs – according to Monash University research. Published in the Medical Journal of Australia, the study aimed to quantify the national burden of working time lost to compensable occupational injury and disease and how working time lost is distributed across age, sex, injury and disease.
