About the Health, Safety and Wellness Division
The Health, Safety and Wellness (HSW) Division:
- promotes the highest practicable standard of occupational health, safety and wellness within UQ
- supports a positive and proactive health and safety culture
- facilitates compliance with legislation and national standards.
We work with UQ management and the UQ health and safety network to:
- effectively manage health and safety risks
- minimise injury and illness of staff and students during their teaching, research and support activities
- proactively address future hazards and risks.
Principles
- HSW is a moral and ethical responsibility.
- Management is accountable for driving HSW in the workplace.
- It is unacceptable for people to be harmed in the course of their endeavours at UQ.
- Leadership commitment to the HSW of our people is expected and essential.
- Everybody has personal responsibility for protecting the health, safety and wellness of themselves and others.
Priorities
- Enhancing wellness and community
- Empowering culture and capability
- Quality risk management
- Integrated systems and decision making
- Beyond compliance.
What we do
The HSW Division has 10 core functions. Our service description (PDF, 1.1MB) lists the services provided by the Division and the distributed health and safety network in support of each function.
Supporting UQ HSW governance and consultative mechanisms
- Maintain, support and advise the UQ HSW governance and consultative committees. This includes providing specialist input to related groups such as the Institutional Biosafety Committee, HSW committees and ad hoc working groups.
Developing, managing and maintaining UQ’s HSW management system
- Roll out the UQ Health, Safety and Wellness Strategy 2022–2026.
- Develop and monitor UQ’s HSW goals 2022–2026.
- Coordinate the development and ongoing enhancement of the UQ HSW management system.
- Monitor the implementation of the UQ HSW management system across the organisation.
- Develop and review HSW-related policies, procedures, guidelines and programs.
Facilitating risk management processes at UQ
- Maintain and facilitate the UQ risk management framework.
- Establish risk management tools and risk priorities.
Developing and delivering HSW programs
- Develop corporate HSW programs and support local programs.
- Develop and promote a corporate wellbeing program for staff/students.
- Promote wellbeing at work through a range of activities and information.
Providing advice, information and services
- Provide specialist services and advice on HSW matters to enable, as far as possible, organisational units to resolve issues at the local level.
Monitoring HSW performance
- Manage an incident reporting, investigations and remediation system, and ensure University management is properly informed of emerging issues and the University’s HSW performance.
- Monitor the HSW performance of UQ and UQ organisational units through a range of programs, such as auditing and inspection programs.
Developing HSW capability
- Develop and provide effective HSW, regulatory compliance and risk-specific training and capability development initiatives for managers, supervisors, other workers and students.
- Assist in establishing and supporting internal networks to facilitate enhanced HSW outcomes for UQ.
Incident investigation
- Have a corporate approach to incident investigation.
- Notify regulators of notifiable incidents and work with them to achieve results.
- Assist in developing corrective action plans where necessary.
Engaging with regulators and stakeholders
- Effectively manage relationships with the range of regulators involved in operations affecting UQ.
- Work with regulators to streamline compliance requirements.
- Ensure all other stakeholders are engaged to ensure optimal HSW outcomes.
Workers’ compensation self-insurance and return to work services
- Manage the UQ self-insurance function and ensure a high-quality system for workers' compensation and rehabilitation.