Australian Work Health and Safety Principles
The model WHS laws and Victoria's OHS Act, the duties of health services and workers, consultation, the Code of Practice, and where your hospital's safe patient handling policy fits.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Part of Manual Handling Training for Nurses and Healthcare Workers
Key learning points
- Describe the general duties of health services (PCBUs) and workers under Australian WHS law
- Recognise that Victoria operates under its own OHS Act and that requirements differ between jurisdictions
- Explain what the hazardous manual tasks Code of Practice is and how it is used
- Understand consultation, training, supervision and the role of workplace policies
- Explain where this course sits alongside your mandatory workplace competencies
The legal framework in brief
Safe Work Australia developed the model Work Health and Safety Act and Regulations. The Commonwealth, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT, the Northern Territory and, since 2022, Western Australia have each adopted them with local variations. Each jurisdiction has its own regulator — SafeWork NSW, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, WorkSafe WA, SafeWork SA, WorkSafe Tasmania, WorkSafe ACT and NT WorkSafe.
Victoria is different on paper, similar in practice
Victoria has not adopted the model laws. Victorian health services operate under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and the OHS Regulations 2017, regulated by WorkSafe Victoria. The Victorian law speaks of employers and employees rather than PCBUs and workers, and has a compliance code for hazardous manual handling rather than a code of practice. The underlying duties — identify, assess, control so far as is reasonably practicable, consult, review — are essentially the same.
Duties of the health service
The organisation that runs the hospital, clinic or community health service is the person conducting a business or undertaking, or PCBU. It holds the primary duty of care. That duty extends to everyone who works for it, including agency staff, contractors, students on placement and volunteers.
What a health service is generally expected to do
- Provide a working environment that is safe, so far as is reasonably practicable
- Identify hazardous manual tasks in clinical and support work and put controls in place
- Provide suitable equipment — ceiling hoists, mobile hoists, slings, slide sheets, electric profiling beds — and keep it maintained and serviced
- Provide information, training, instruction and supervision, including practical patient handling competencies
- Consult workers and health and safety representatives about manual handling risks and controls
- Have systems for reporting hazards, incidents, near misses and equipment faults, and act on them
- Arrange staffing and work systems so that the procedures it writes can actually be followed
What a worker is generally expected to do
- Take reasonable care for your own health and safety
- Take reasonable care that your actions do not harm others — patients, colleagues, students and visitors
- Comply with reasonable instructions, including the safe patient handling policy
- Co-operate with reasonable policies and procedures, such as completing mandatory competencies
- Use equipment as you have been trained to use it, and only equipment you are authorised to use
- Report hazards, incidents, near misses, early symptoms and faulty equipment
Senior executives and board members are officers under the model laws and must exercise due diligence to make sure the organisation meets its duties. Nurse unit managers and team leaders usually act on behalf of the PCBU day to day: they are the people you escalate to, and they carry worker duties themselves.
The Code of Practice
Safe Work Australia publishes the model Code of Practice: Hazardous Manual Tasks, and most jurisdictions have approved it or a local version. A code of practice is not law in itself, but it describes what is reasonably practicable, courts and regulators use it as evidence of the standard expected, and a health service that ignores it has to show its alternative is at least as good. Several regulators also publish healthcare-specific guidance on transferring people safely. You do not need to memorise any of it; you need to know it exists and that your hospital's policies are built on it.
Hospital policies and mandatory competencies
Every health service has a manual handling or safe patient handling policy, often described as a no lift or minimal lift policy, supported by procedures for specific tasks and by annual practical competencies on hoists, slide sheets and transfers. Those competencies are assessed in person, on your equipment, by your educators. This course gives you the theory underneath them. It does not replace them, and completing it does not authorise you to use any device.
Follow your workplace
Always follow your health service's policies, procedures and instructions, which take precedence over anything in this course. Where the two differ, follow your workplace procedure and raise the difference with your nurse unit manager or educator. Professional standards for nurses expect safe practice and the escalation of concerns; declining an unsafe technique is consistent with those standards, not a breach of them.
Consultation
Consultation means workers have a genuine say in decisions that affect their safety, usually through health and safety representatives, ward meetings and incident review. The people doing the task see the problems first — a ceiling hoist track that stops short of the ensuite, a bay where the fourth bed has no room for a mobile hoist, a store room where the fluids are stacked above shoulder height. Raising these is part of the safety system, not a complaint.
Who does what
- Health service (PCBU)
- Primary duty: safe systems, equipment, training, consultation, reporting systems, staffing
- Officers (executives, board)
- Due diligence: resourcing, verifying that controls are in place and working
- Nurse unit manager / team leader
- Applies the policy on the unit, responds to escalations, arranges equipment and staffing
- You as a worker
- Reasonable care, follow procedures, use equipment as trained, report and escalate
- Health and safety representative
- Represents the work group in consultation and can raise issues formally
- Student, agency or casual staff
- Same worker duties; entitled to orientation and to decline tasks they are not competent in
Practical scenario
Scenario: the agency shift
You are an enrolled nurse on an agency shift in an unfamiliar ward. The team leader asks you to do a hoist transfer with a healthcare assistant. The ceiling hoist is a model you have never used, and your competency was assessed on a different brand of mobile hoist.
What is the appropriate response?
Reveal the explanation
Say so. You have a duty to use equipment only as you have been trained, and the health service has a duty to orient agency staff. Ask for a quick orientation from someone competent on that hoist, or assist under the direction of a staff member who is, without operating the controls yourself. This is not a personal failing; it is exactly how the system is meant to work.
Practical scenario
Scenario: an instruction you are unsure about
A busy senior colleague says the quickest way to get a patient back up the bed is for the two of you to hook under his arms and pull. There are slide sheets in the linen cupboard down the corridor.
What should you do?
Reveal the explanation
Do not do it. Under-arm lifts are prohibited in almost every Australian hospital because they load your spine and can injure the patient's shoulders and skin. Fetch the slide sheets, flatten the bed, and do the move properly. If the practice is common on the unit, raise it with the nurse unit manager or educator so it can be addressed for everyone.
Knowledge check
These questions are for your own learning. They are not part of the final assessment.
1. Which of the following is a worker's duty under Australian WHS principles?
Workers must take reasonable care for themselves and others and co-operate with reasonable policies and instructions. Providing equipment and writing procedures is the health service's duty.
2. Which statement about Victoria is correct?
Victoria has not adopted the model laws. It uses the OHS Act 2004 and OHS Regulations 2017, regulated by WorkSafe Victoria, with a compliance code for hazardous manual handling.
3. How does this online course relate to your hospital's annual safe patient handling competency?
Mandatory competencies are assessed in person on your workplace's equipment. This course supports them with theory and cannot substitute for them.
4. The model Code of Practice: Hazardous Manual Tasks is best described as:
A code of practice is not law in itself, but it describes the expected standard. Hospital manual handling policies are built on it.
Sources and further reading
The framework this module summarises, from the regulators themselves. Your workplace procedures always take precedence.
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- Safe Work Australia — Model WHS laws
- Safe Work Australia — Health care and social assistance industry