Employers and Designers in Health Facilities
Duties of employers and Designers in Health Facilities.
The term “Design” in the Victorian and Federal OHS contexts refers to a chain of decisions and actions that in some way shape a project outcome and includes decisions made by builders, clients and specialist advisers such as say Occupational Therapists.
It is therefore beholden on the Client and the Architect to ensure that design decisions are well founded in evidence based practice and that the design team is appropriately qualified to undertake the design task.
Arqua Australis provide qualified support to facilities’ managers and designers throughout the facility development process and on completion we follow up with a post occupancy and 6 month reviews as required by the Aged Care Act.
Relevant extracts from State and Federal OHS Acts:
Employees
An employer must ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all the employees of the employer. That duty extends (without limitation) to the following:
(a) ensuring that any premises controlled by the employer where the employees work (and the means of access to or exit from the premises) are safe and without risks to health,
(e) providing adequate facilities for the welfare of the employees at work. (1)
Others at workplace
An employer must ensure that people (other than the employees of the employer) are not exposed to risks to their health or safety arising from the conduct of the employer’s undertaking while they are at the employer’s place of work. (1)
Designers of workplace
A person who designs a building has a duty to ensure that it is designed to be safe and without risk to health when the building or structure is used for the purpose for which it was designed. (2)
(1)http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/Documents/Publications/OHS/OHS%20Act%20Review/report_on_the_review_of_the_occupational_health_and_safety_2006_4859.pdf. Cited September 2008
(2) ASCC General Duties of Care for OHS 2007 S19.
For Employer and Employees
As the global labour market continues to tighten and the cost of living continues to increase, people that may have fallen out of the workforce due to an impairment are being persuaded to return.
Employing people with disabilities has considerable benefits such as retaining and returning to work skilled workers. Yet evidence suggests that before we realise the benefits we need to make some improvements as the workplace is still the main area of formal discrimination complaints (60%Qld).
Of those complaints Impairment Discrimination is highest (24%Qld) generating twice the number of complaints as Sex Discrimination (13%Qld).
We recommend that prior to placing an employee, the worksite should undertake an access audit as proactive first step. Implementing an access audit and soliciting feedback has the potential to improve employee productivity, job satisfaction and retention.
