Allowing equipment companies to recommend your equipment needs for safe patient handling may contribute to a conflict of interest. Equipment companies need to sell equipment. They also need to sell their own equipment. That’s their core business.

An organisation requires specific equipment to carry out safe patient handling in the workplace.

We are not aligned with any equipment company. Instead, O’Shea & Associates provides you with an unbiased and objective analysis about what you currently have, it’s condition and how it’s currently meeting your organisation’s needs, what your gaps are, what else is available in the marketplace and what your short, medium and long term needs are.

It is critical that care staff reposition and transfer patients/residents safely so that risk of injury is reduced significantly. If staff are not following safe practice, it may have to do with inappropriate training, poor culture at the local level or just not knowing what they are suppose to do.

O’Shea & Associates can quickly audit your workplace and provide you with objective feedback about what staff are actually doing and whether they are contributing to risk for themselves, their co-workers, the patients/residents or the organisation.

As part of regulatory compliance, you need to know what hazardous manual handling tasks are carried out in the workplace. This includes the moving and handling of both materials and people.

O’Shea & Associates, in conjunction with the managers and staff in the workplace, identify all hazardous manual handling tasks, assess the risk of those tasks and identify solutions, both interim and long term.

As part of the regulatory compliance, all manual tasks should have a written safe operating procedure which includes the least risky (or safest) method of carrying out that task. O’Shea assists organisations to identify and develop relevant safe operating procedures for manual tasks that occur in the workplace and to write policies and protocols to support those safe operating procedures.

OFF SITE: The workshop provides the health service the opportunity to update existing trainers, train additional trainers, access new information, techniques and procedures, identify solutions, trial specific equipment and evaluate the facility’s progress. It also provides the health service with the opportunity to review their current practices and ensure they are obtaining the best possible outcomes in relation to the handling of people and materials in the workplace and have the paper trail to prove it. It also provides those attending with opportunity to network with other facilities using O’Shea.

Who can attend: Local No Lift Champions, No Lift or Manual Tasks Coordinators, OHS personnel and managers.

One Day Refresher Workshops for existing Trainers or Champions requiring a refresher or update assessment on their skills and knowledge.

Two Day Train the Trainer Workshops for new Trainers or Champions

ON SITE: O’Shea provides site or speciality specific training for your staff in your workplace for both clinical and non clinical areas, covering both people and materials handling. This provides the attendees with knowledge and solutions that are specific to their worksite due to the nature of the work they undertake, the design and environment of their workplace, the type of patients they transfer, the equipment available and the organisation’s culture or mission. Managers are also able to attend the theory component of the workshops which greatly contributes to resolving issues and understanding roles and responsibilities in relation to manual handling.

One Day Refresher Workshops for existing Trainers or Champions requiring a refresher or update assessment on their skills and knowledge.

Two Day Train the Trainer Workshops for new Trainers or Champions

O’Shea provides a full implementation of our manual handling risk management System into community programs, aged care facilities, home care and hospitals. This can cover both the clinical and non clinical manual handling tasks, and looks at both the generic people handling and non generic wards such as Operating Theatre, ED, Midwifery, Rehab and Aged Care. In order to ensure standardisation and sustainability, a formal systematic approach is taken using three stages: pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation.

Pre Implementation consists of setting up the corporate and local structures to support the System. This includes policy development, process and procedures, risk assessment of hazardous manual tasks, equipment audit, planning training, marketing, evaluation and monitoring mechanisms and documentation.

Implementation includes training and assessing champions or trainers, training the staff and managers, problem solving and introduction of documentation. It ensures learned procedures become practice.

Post Implementation focuses on maintaining and sustaining the System through monitoring, meeting key performance indicators, problem solving and local committees.

Partial Implementation: The organisation can choose a partial implementation depending on what their needs are. This may include implementation into clinical areas only, putting a focus on the non-generic aspects of the facility such as theatres or midwifery, or implementing into a non-clinical area such as Hotel Services or Food Services. It may also include developing safe operating or work procedures, carrying out an equipment audit to identify immediate and long term needs or complete a training needs analysis.

O’Shea can provide expert reports, essay help and testimony for use in workers compensation claims, common law cases and other legal issues.