WHS Profile: Nursing, Care and Support Workforce

Occupational risk profile

Many day-to-day tasks for workers in the Nursing, care and support workforce are physically demanding and technically complex.  

According to Safe Work Australia’s Beta Occupational Hazards Dataset, Nursing, care and support workers are exposed to various hazards on a weekly or monthly basis, including ‘Dealing with physically aggressive and unpleasant people’, ‘Exposure to disease or infection’ and ‘Hazardous body positions’ compared to all other occupations⁴. 

Evidence from the People at Work Survey (2024) shows workers in the Health care and social assistance industry were more likely to report bullying in the workplace (31% compared to 29% across all industries), and much more likely to experience workplace violence. In particular, workers were most likely to report experiencing Angry or hostile behaviour (50%, compared to 41% across all industries), Shouting and swearing (41%, compared to 35% across all industries), and Intimidation and insults (35%, compared to 28% across all industries).

Table 1: Serious claim frequency rates for All occupations and the Nursing, care and support workforce by Sex and Age group (2012-13 to 2022-23p⁷)

Age group	Under 25	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65 and over
All occupations
Female	4.1	3.7	4.9	6.8	8.3	7.4
Male	7.3	5.6	5.7	6.9	8.2	6.7
Total	5.9	4.8	5.4	6.9	8.2	7.0
Nursing, Care and Support Workforce
Female	8.3	8.5	12.0	14.9	16.1	15.5
Male	6.1	6.2	8.2	12.6	14.7	16.8
Total	7.9	8.0	11.2	14.6	15.9	15.7

 

The highest frequency rates of serious workers’ compensation claims are observed in older female workers, with this figure more than double the frequency rate observed for female workers across All occupations and most age groups.

Further, Nursing support and personal care workers exhibit a much larger serious claim frequency rate when compared to both Registered nurses and Aged and disabled carers. The serious claims frequency rate for these workers was 29.1 per million hours worked and 18.5 per million hours worked for Females and Males within this occupation, respectively.

The Nature of injury or disease refers to the most serious injury or disease sustained or suffered by the worker.

For example – “While a worker was handling a patient to assist them out of their hospital bed, the worker fell and suffered a dislocated shoulder”

The nature of the shoulder injury would be classified as a ‘Traumatic joint/ligament and muscle/tendon injury’.

The Mechanism of injury or disease identifies the overall action, exposure or recent that best described the circumstances that resulted in the most serious injury or disease.

For example – “A worker slipped on a wet floor and spilt hot water being carried, causing a burn.” 

The mechanism of injury or disease would be identified as ‘Falls on the same level’.

The Nursing, care and support workforce encounter specific risk factors that centre around their interactions with patients or clients.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the Nursing, care and support workforce were on the front-line delivering care to those who were affected by the virus – as a result, these workers were disproportionately exposed to COVID-19 and other infections/diseases (8.6 serious claims per 10 million hours worked for Novel coronavirus, compared to the national average of 2.3). 

Since 2012-13, injuries resulting from Body stressing activities have consistently been the most common type of work-related injury or illness for the Nursing, care and support workforce (an average of 47.6% of all serious claims during the period, compared to 37.8% for All occupations).

Mental health conditions are the 4th most prevalent nature of injury for this workforce but have been increasing steadily over time, almost doubling over the last 10 years. This has resulted in an increase of over 500 serious Mental health claims from 2012-13. However, according to the 2020 Mental Health Productivity Commission Inquiry, not all people dealing with negative mental health seek treatment – this is especially true in the workplace⁸. Thus, many more incidents that negatively impact mental health may go unreported or uncompensated. 

‘Anxiety/stress disorder’, ‘Reactions to stressors’ and ‘Post-traumatic stress disorders’ account for 82% of these serious claims for Mental health conditions.

Latest data¹⁰ show that approximately 1 in 4 serious workers’ compensation claims for the Nursing, care and support workforce predominantly involved ‘Muscular stress while handling objects other than lifting, carrying or putting down’. These claims are more costly with respect to both compensation payments and time lost from work.

• Median time lost for serious claims involving ‘Muscular stress while handling objects other than lifting, carrying or putting down’ is 2.6 weeks longer than the average for other types of injuries.
• The median compensation paid¹¹ for serious claims involving ‘Muscular stress while handling objects other than lifting, carrying or putting down’ is $3,609 greater than the average for other types of injuries.

• In 2023-23p, over half of the Body stressing claims (54.5%) made by workers in the Nursing, care and support workforce cited ‘Human agencies’ (where another ‘human’ was the direct cause of the most serious injury or disease) as the primary agency involved in the injury. This is significantly greater than the result seen for All other occupations, just 12.8%, as seen in Figure 5.
• Investigating these Human agency claims in more detail, we find that more than 1 in 3 serious claims involving Human agencies principally involved ‘Adults – patients and residents in care’. These cases often involve an injury that is the result of moving a patient, leading to a musculoskeletal injury.

Conclusions

Appendix

Data Sources

The Nursing, Care and Support Workforce Overview has been derived from Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2021 Census data counting persons by place of usual residence as well as a four-quarter average of 2023 ABS Labour Force Survey data. 

• The Census is conducted every five years, collecting important data about the Australian population, including demographics, social factors, and economic information. See the ABS census methodology page for further detail.
• The monthly Labour Force Survey (LFS) provides information about the labour market activity of Australia’s resident civilian population aged 15 years and over.

The Nursing, Care and Support Workforce – occupational risk profile is derived from Safe Work Australia’s National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics (NDS) and the Beta Occupational Hazards Dataset (BOHD).  

• Safe Work Australia compiles national workers’ compensation statistics using data obtained from workers’ compensation authorities in each state, territory, and the Commonwealth government. These data are collated into the NDS, which is Safe Work Australia’s primary source of information on work-related injuries and diseases. See Explanatory Notes: National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics for detailed information.
• The BOHD contains information on the ‘work context’ of occupations. Part of this includes information on how often occupations are exposed to, or involve doing, things which may result in injury or illness. Safe Work Australia constructed this dataset by mapping selected fields from the United States’ O*NET database onto the Australian occupational classification (ANZSCO) and combining this contextual information about the nature of work that occurs in different occupations with Safe Work Australia’s workers’ compensation claims data, alongside ABS employment levels for each occupation to reflect the composition of the Australian labour market.

Relevant resources

• Model Code of Practice: Sexual and gender-based harassment
• Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work
• Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks
• Model Code of Practice: Managing the work environment and facilities
• Workplace violence and aggression resource(s)
• Workplace violence is not ok – keeping emergency departments safe

Footnotes

¹ Jobs and Skills Australia. (2024). Occupation Shortage List. [online] Available at: https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/data/occupation-shortages-analysis/occupation-shortage-list?level=4.

² Nursing Supply and Demand Study. (2023). Available at: https://hwd.health.gov.au/resources/primary/nursing-supply-and-demand-study-2023-2035.pdf.

³ Frequency rates are defined as the number of serious claims per million hours worked, using estimates of the working population covered under a workers’ compensation scheme. 

There are significant differences in the number of hours worked by different groups of employees, and employees at different points in time. These differences in the number of hours worked mean that employees’ exposure to work-related risks vary considerably. A frequency rate accounts for these differences and allows more accurate comparisons between industries and/or different groups of workers.

⁴ All other occupations’ is defined as all occupations that are collected within the Beta Occupational Hazards Dataset. For more information about this data, see https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/analysis/insights-bohd

⁵Exposure scores range between 0 and 100, which are an average of responses that workers provided for their occupation. For further information about interpreting exposure scores in the Beta Occupational Hazards Dataset, see https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/analysis/insights-bohd

⁶The 2022-23 NDS data are preliminary (denoted by ‘p’). The data are likely to rise as revisions occur in future years.

⁷Frequency rates are defined as the number of serious claims per million hours worked, using estimates of the working population covered under a workers’ compensation scheme.

⁸Productivity Commission Inquiry Report. (2020) Available at: https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/mental-health/report/mental-health-volume2.pdf.

⁹New South Wales (2023), Smith v Sydney West Area Health Service - NSW Caselaw. [online] Available at: https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/549fe20a3004262463c1de28.

¹⁰Latest non-preliminary data are 2021-22 results. Median time lost and compensation payments calculations exclude preliminary data (2022-23p) because claims from the preliminary year are likely to be open and claimants are likely to accrue more time off work/compensation payments over future years.

¹¹Median compensation calculations exclude no cost compensation claims.

¹²www.worksafe.vic.gov.au. (n.d.). Prosecution Result Summaries and Enforceable Undertakings - WorkSafe. [online] Available at: https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/prosecution-result-summaries-enforceable-undertakings.