All work-related incidents and hazards must be reported through the self-service portal Skytrust. If in doubt, report.
Some serious work-related incidents are notifiable under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) and must be reported to Comcare immediately.
Work-related incidents
Work-related incidents are those that occur during the course of undertaking duties connected to your employment and include:
- injuries requiring first aid or medical treatment
- near misses (incidents that may have resulted in injury if not for a mitigating action or system)
- time lost (incidents requiring time off work)
- psychological injury
- decreased capacity to perform normal duties, including where the initial cause was not connected with work.
It may be appropriate to report an incident that occurred outside of work if the incident is likely to affect your capacity to perform work.
Notifiable incidents
Under the WHS Act, the following incidents must be reported to Comcare immediately:
- death of a person
- serious injury or illness of a person
- dangerous incidents.
Part 3 of the WHS Act provides detailed definitions of the above incidents.
Comcare's incident notification flowchart (see related resources) provides more information to help determine whether an incident is notifiable to Comcare. If in doubt, contact the HR Advice and Support team.
Wherever practicable, the person involved in the incident should make the report.
If the employee involved in an incident is unable to report it, the WHS Site Officer, a colleague or supervisor may call the WHS provider or Comcare on the injured person’s behalf. Any hazard that may have contributed to the incident should be reported through Skytrust.
Reporting notifiable incidents
All notifiable incidents must be reported immediately.
There are responsibilities to preserve the incident site, notify Comcare and update the incident notification when any changes occur. An incident site must be preserved until cleared by a Comcare Inspector.
Reporting during work hours
If a notifiable incident has occurred, you must report it to the contracted WHS provider on 1300 418 288 immediately. The WHS provider will arrange with Ministerial and Parliamentary Services (MaPS) to report notifiable incidents to Comcare.
Reporting outside working hours
If the WHS provider is unavailable, notifiable incidents must be reported to Comcare on 1300 366 979 immediately. This number will re-direct to the on-call Comcare inspector who will advise next steps.
You must advise the WHS provider of your report to Comcare at the first opportunity and log the incident in Skytrust. The WHS provider and MaPS will follow up with a full written report to Comcare regarding the incident.
After reporting a notifiable incident to Comcare
Advise of any updates to the incident and comply with any directions given by the Comcare Inspector.
The site of an incident must not be disturbed, except for a ‘prescribed reason’, such as to:
- assist an injured person
- remove a deceased person
- make the site safe or to minimise the risk of a further notifiable incident
- facilitate a police investigation.
Contact Comcare on 1300 366 979 for advice if you are unsure whether an incident site needs to be preserved.
Hazards
Under section 28 of the WHS Act, all MOP(S) Act employees have a responsibility to report WHS hazards and take reasonable care for their own health and safety in the workplace.
Hazards include:
- ergonomic hazards – physical factors in the environment that may cause musculoskeletal injuries (e.g. equipment layout, manual handling, lighting, noise, workstation design etc.)
- physical hazards - factors or conditions within the environment that can harm your health (e.g. electricity, heat, confined spaces, body stressing etc.)
- psychosocial hazards – aspects of work which have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm (e.g. bullying and harassment, workplace violence, mental stress etc.)
- biological hazards – organic substances that present a threat to the health of people and other living organisms (e.g. mould, viruses, toxins from biological sources etc.)
- chemical hazards – a hazardous chemical can be a solid, liquid or gas and harm the health of a person exposed to it (e.g. skin irritants, solvents etc.).
On identifying a hazard, you should:
- eliminate the hazard if safe to do so (e.g. clean up spilled water on floor)
- warn your colleagues to reduce the risk of injury
- advise your WHS Site Officer who will assess whether an immediate local response is required (e.g. limiting access to the area)
- lodge a hazard report on Skytrust.