Designed In, Not Bolted On
Why good work design is the best way to manage risk in care, and what the new Code of Practice means for how routines get built.
When most care organisations think about managing manual handling risk, they think about training, equipment and procedures. Those matter. But the new Code of Practice for Healthcare and Social Assistance starts earlier than any of them, with good work design.
The Code describes it as the best way to prevent work-related injury and illness. It deals with the root causes of risk, so you're not relying on less effective controls like asking workers to be more careful.
What this looks like in practice
Through the training I run, I regularly meet support workers providing complex physical care: hoisted transfers, repositioning, bed mobility. Skilled, caring people who want to do the work well. But very often the routines they're following were never designed by anyone. They've been shaped shift by shift, by whoever is on and by how each person has been supported in the past.
That isn't a staff problem, and it isn't one provider's problem. It's a design gap, and it's more common than most of us would like to admit. A routine that's never been designed means:
Every support worker does it slightly differently
Nobody has checked whether there's a safer or more comfortable way
There's nothing written down to train a new worker on
There's no baseline to tell you when the person's needs have changed
Training and equipment can't fully fix that. You end up bolting controls onto a routine that was never built properly in the first place. Support workers can't train their way out of a high-risk routine that was never designed.
Who has the knowledge to design it
The person receiving care is the expert on their own comfort, preferences and what works for their body. That expertise must be at the centre of the design.
But nobody can be expected to know every option: which sling suits which posture, what a slide sheet can do, how a technique can reduce load on both the client and the worker. Good design needs both kinds of expertise in the same room: the person's lived experience, and the clinical knowledge of what's possible. Ideally one or two of the regular support workers are there too, because they know what it's like to deliver the routine.
What it changes
A routine designed this way can be documented with photos or video, so it becomes a training resource. It gives you consistency whoever is on shift. It gives the person receiving care more confidence in the people supporting them. And it gives you a reference point, so when a person's capacity changes you can see it and review the routine, instead of support workers quietly working it out alone. The Code also says good work design should be considered whenever the work or the work environment changes.
The shift the Code is asking for
Under work health and safety legislation, employers have always been responsible for the safety of their workers. That means more than knowing the work happens. It means identifying the hazards, assessing the risk, and designing the work so it can be done safely, including the routines support workers carry out every shift. Care happening in someone's own home doesn't change this.
What's changed is the weight behind it. Since 1 July 2026, s26A of the WHS Act means providers must either comply with an approved Code or show they're managing the risk to an equal or higher standard another way. The Code is no longer just a reference point for what's reasonable.
That's why this has become more serious. A routine that was never designed, assessed or documented used to be a gap in good practice. Now it's something you'd need to justify against the Code.
So here are three questions worth asking about your own service:
Has each of your most complex care routines been intentionally designed with the right expertise, and reviewed recently?
Do you know what your support workers are actually doing in those routines?
Have those routines been risk assessed, and are staff trained in them?
If you can't answer all three with a confident "yes," you're not alone. It's exactly where the Code is pointing us.
We'll be unpacking this, and what we're seeing across the sector, in The Practice Just Got Clearer. So Did Your Obligation FREE webinar at 1pm on Wednesday 28th October . Free registration here: https://movementum.com.au/webinar-oct-2026