Adelaide launch for national injury prevention program

20 September 2011

The first in a national program of free injury prevention training courses for the printing industry began in Adelaide today with other states following from next week.

Printing Industries launched the project for its members to target musculoskeletal injuries, which are responsible for a significant percentage of industry workers compensation claims.

Peter Mansfield, general manager of Printing Industries SA/NT, says the program, developed in South Australia, had its Adelaide launch today before being rolled out across the country.

“We had an excellent response from our South Australian members with representatives from 17 companies attending the one day training course. In-house sessions have been planned for some of our larger member companies,” he said.

“The pilot research undertaken in South Australia showed that sprains and strains account for 38 per cent of time lost claims and 37.9 per cent of total printing workers compensation claims.

“Muscle tendon and soft tissue disorders account for a further 14 per cent of injuries, so it is very important for our members to be able to properly identify and manage injury risk activities and be able to rehabilitate their employees back into the workforce as quickly and effectively as possible for all concerned.”

Pictured: Participants at the first training Session for Musculoskeletal Injury Prevention held in Adelaide, Tuesday 20 September 2011.

As a result of the project printing companies, doctors, specialists and rehabilitation providers have access to a range of printed and electronic web based resources created specifically for printing company employee jobs and production environments.

Associated risk levels are identified and catalogued and presented with print, picture and video resources illustrating how to minimise risk and, where injury has occurred, to assist with assessing how employees can make a safe and timely return to work.

Participating companies receive the illustrated training resources as well as access to job function pre-employment criteria; videos illustrating how various workplace tasks are performed; machine assessments identifying and prioritising high risk tasks; and action plans to minimise musculoskeletal injury in specific machine operating or task environments.

The training schedule during September and October is:

Information is available from all Printing Industries offices or by contacting janettep@printnet.com.au