Risk Assessment and Risk Controls
How to assess a manual task properly and apply the hierarchy of controls instead of relying on technique alone.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Part of Manual Handling Training for Aged Care Workers
Key learning points
- Work through the identify, assess, control, review cycle
- Apply the hierarchy of controls to aged care manual tasks
- Consider the task, individual, environment and equipment together
- Explain why technique alone is not a control
- Explain how mobility assessments, care plans and your reports feed the assessment
- Recognise when controls need to be reviewed
The risk management cycle
- Identify the hazards — which tasks involve manual task risk factors?
- Assess the risk — how likely is harm, and how serious could it be?
- Control the risk — apply the most effective control that is reasonably practicable
- Review — check the control worked, and reassess when anything changes
What to consider when assessing
- The task
- How is it actually performed, not how it is written? What postures and forces are involved?
- The individual receiving care
- Mobility, weight-bearing ability, cognition, pain, behaviour, cooperation, size
- The environment
- Space, floor surface, lighting, clutter, doorways, bathroom layout, bed height
- The equipment
- Is suitable equipment available, working, accessible and appropriate for this person?
- Frequency and duration
- How often and for how long is the task performed?
- The worker
- Training, authorisation, experience, fatigue, staffing available
Mobility assessments and care plans
A mobility or manual handling assessment, on admission and after any change, records what the person can do, and the care plan turns it into a method: the transfer, the equipment, the sling and the number of staff. WorkSafe Victoria's aged care guidance says safe handling methods, including how many people should assist, belong in the care plan.
Your part: you see the task every day
Assessments are often written by a registered nurse, physiotherapist or manager, but you perform the task every shift. You notice the resident who now grabs during transfers and the bathroom where the chair will not turn. Consultation means those observations shape the assessment and the controls chosen.
Report into the assessment
- A person who needs more help than the plan says
- Equipment that is faulty, missing, hard to push or the wrong size
- Tasks that make you bend, twist, reach or push hard every time
- Aches after a particular task, and near misses
Hierarchy of controls
Most effective at the top
- Eliminate
- Remove the hazardous task altogether — deliver supplies to the point of use so they are not carried
- Substitute
- Replace with something less hazardous — smaller linen packs, lighter trolleys
- Isolate / engineering
- Change the environment or equipment — ceiling hoists, height-adjustable beds, better castors, wider access
- Administrative
- Change work methods — two-person procedures, task rotation, scheduling, procedures, training and supervision
- Personal protective equipment
- Least effective for manual tasks; PPE does not reduce the force applied to the body
Aged care examples at each level
- Eliminate: supplies delivered to where they are used, no duplicated handling, and people moving themselves where they safely can
- Substitute: smaller linen packs and lighter trolleys that take less force to move
- Engineering: hoists, slide sheets, height-adjustable beds raised before care, better castors, well-maintained equipment, and furniture moved to open up access
- Administrative: two-person procedures with rostering to support them, task rotation, showers spread across the day, clear procedures, training and supervision
- PPE: gloves and non-slip shoes do not reduce the force on your body or change the task
Controls work best together: a hoist still needs a procedure, training and enough staff. Queensland's people handling code of practice says no worker should fully lift a person, other than a small infant, without help from mechanical aids, assistive devices or another worker.
Technique is not a control on its own
The solution to manual handling risk is not simply telling workers to lift correctly. Risk should be controlled at its source so far as is reasonably practicable — by changing the task, the environment or the equipment. Training and technique support those controls; they do not replace them.
SafeWork SA states that research shows 'how to lift' training is not effective in preventing injuries, because the risk factors are not changed, and that a business relying on it is not meeting its risk management duties. It points instead to training in using the aids, equipment and procedures provided, reporting problems, and how risks are identified, assessed and controlled.
Reviewing controls
A control that worked last month may not work today, and a new control can create a new risk, such as a hoist too big for the bathroom. Review the assessment when the task, person, equipment or environment changes, after an incident or near miss, when discomfort is reported, or when a control is not working or is being worked around. A fixed review date helps, but it does not replace these triggers.
In Victoria, the OHS Regulations require an employer to review its manual handling controls when a musculoskeletal disorder is reported, after a notifiable incident involving hazardous manual handling, and when a health and safety representative asks. Under any framework, your report is often what starts the review.
Putting it into practice
Practical scenario
Scenario: a recurring strain
Three staff report shoulder discomfort after showering the same resident. The bathroom is small, the shower chair is hard to turn, and staff must reach over the chair.
What is the most effective response?
Reveal the explanation
Not 'be careful'. Assess the task and control at the source: service or replace the shower chair, reorganise the bathroom to create turning space, review the care plan for a different shower arrangement or equipment, and confirm the required number of staff. Then review whether discomfort reports stop.
Practical scenario
Scenario: home from hospital
You visit a client who has just come home from hospital. Her care plan says one worker helps her stand from the bed with a walking frame. Today she cannot take her weight, and the bed is low and against the wall.
What should happen to the assessment and the controls?
Reveal the explanation
Do not attempt the transfer or take her weight. Keep her safe and comfortable, offer the care that can be done safely, and ring your coordinator. The plan no longer matches the person, so her mobility must be reassessed and the controls reviewed: perhaps a height-adjustable bed away from the wall, a hoist or a second worker, with training on any new equipment. Record what you saw.
Knowledge check
These questions are for your own learning. They are not part of the final assessment.
1. Which approach is most effective for reducing hazardous manual handling risk?
Risk should be controlled at its source. Technique reminders and PPE are the weakest responses to manual task risk.
2. Installing height-adjustable beds sits where in the hierarchy of controls?
Changing the equipment or environment is an engineering control and is more reliable than relying on worker behaviour.
3. When should a manual task risk assessment be reviewed?
Review is triggered by change, incidents, new information or evidence that a control is ineffective.