Psychosocial risk management
Care for the people who care for everyone.
High emotional demands, aggression, staffing pressure and exposure to distressing events can accumulate across healthcare and social assistance. Protecting carers requires safer work—not resilience training alone.
The risk is real
24.3%
Health care and social assistance accounted for 24.3% of all serious workers’ compensation claims for mental health conditions in Safe Work Australia’s 2021–22 preliminary data.
Share of mental health claims across industries—not the percentage of healthcare workers affected.
Read the sourceRecognise. Consult. Act.
Work design, workplace interactions and working conditions can cause psychological or physical harm. Assess how often exposure occurs, how long it lasts and how severe it is.
Risk exposure
High acuity, vacancies and administrative burden can leave little capacity for breaks or safe handovers.
Practical controls
Match resources to demand, protect breaks and handover time, and consult staff about workload and escalating unsafe conditions.
Risk exposure
Threats from patients, clients or visitors can become normalised if reporting is difficult or ineffective.
Practical controls
Assess environmental and security controls, provide appropriate duress systems and ensure reports lead to timely protective action.
Risk exposure
Repeated exposure to death, distress or abuse can affect teams differently and accumulate over time.
Practical controls
Reduce avoidable exposure, provide clinical supervision and voluntary confidential support, and review caseload allocation.
An illustrative workplace situation
a nurse experiences repeated threats during an understaffed night shift. Review staffing, security and response arrangements together; record incidents without blaming the person harmed.
Improve the conditions around people—not just their ability to cope.
The cost of leaving risks unchecked
>4×
Mental health claims had more than four times the median time lost compared with physical injury and illness claims.
Source and scope>3×
Median compensation for mental health claims was more than three times that for physical injury and illness claims.
Source and scopeReal duties.
WHS regulators can issue improvement or prohibition notices and prosecute breaches. Penalties and powers vary by jurisdiction.
Source and scopeClaim comparisons use Australian serious workers’ compensation claims in 2020–21, reported by Safe Work Australia in February 2024. National figures—not healthcare estimates or predictions of individual harm. Enforcement depends on the applicable law and circumstances.
Australian employers must manage risks to psychological as well as physical health under applicable WHS or OHS laws.
Include clinicians, support workers, administrators and community-based staff; exposure differs by role and setting.
A course or an employee assistance program does not, by itself, discharge this duty. Check your regulator and seek advice for your circumstances.
A practical starting point
Consult workers and HSRs across roles and shifts. Combine their experiences with incident, workload and absence information.
Assess severity, duration and frequency. Record interacting hazards and who may be affected.
Start with work design, staffing, environment and behaviour. Assign an owner and review date.
Ask workers whether exposure has reduced. Update the risk register when conditions change.
Flourish360 for healthcare
Connect personal growth and wellbeing with psychosocial risk insight. Help people build confidence while making hazards, controls and follow-through easier for leaders to see.
We partner with wellbeing programs for a holistic approach. Flourish360 supports your process—it does not replace consultation, effective controls or professional advice.
See what fits your workplacePrepared by Flourish360 using Australian regulatory and sector guidance. Examples are illustrative, not customer case studies. Statistics describe the stated population and period; they do not predict individual risk. This is general information, not legal or clinical advice. Workplace photographs are AI-generated illustrations.