Browsing: Return to work and rehabilitation | Page 5

A union's proposed orders for an employer to put a medically retired worker on a recovery plan was not viable because it contained no mechanisms for reviewing his work capacity and "would operate in seeming perpetuity", a commission has found.

An award-winning global labour-hire company utilises its whole business to support injured workers returning to work, often helping them flourish in their careers, its national workers' compensation manager says.

Large numbers of workers continue to suffer from serious and sometimes debilitating symptoms from previous COVID-19 infections, highlighting the need to identify those most at risk and implement special return-to-work plans that are regularly reviewed and amended, according to occupational health experts.

Australian researchers have identified factors contributing to the heightened risk of self-harm among workers' compensation recipients and others with disabling work injuries, and say there are numerous intervention opportunities, including for employers, "along the pathway between work disability and suicide".

An artificial-intelligence chatbot can help injured workers who are off work and need psychological support tackle the everyday challenges of their recovery, researchers have found.

• Chemicals alert issued with GHS transition period expiring;
  
• New WHS dust regulations further amended in ACT;
  
• Controversial ACT COVID notice followed by WHS amendment; and
  
• RTW guide highlights "the most important relationship".

A Fair Work Commission full bench has ruled that a major university was entitled to require one of its teachers to undergo an independent medical examination, after he took extended sick leave and told senior management, "When I go to class I am going to war. The students are waiting to kill me."

A Federal judge has concluded that undertaking a rehabilitation program is not "work" as prescribed by WHS laws - a finding that precludes a worker from making an adverse action claim over her dismissal.

A worker who was terminated because of her post-traumatic stress disorder has lost her unfair dismissal and disability discrimination case, with a commission accepting her employer was unable to make suitable adjustments for her.

• Tailored rehab accelerates RTW and reduces costs; and
  
• New permanent impairment guide proposed by Comcare.