Royal Life Saving encouraging every aquatic facility to practice safety: every job, every day.

October is National Safe Work Month, and Royal Life Saving is supporting employers and workers within our aquatic facilities to create and provide safe and healthy workplaces.  This year’s theme, safety: every job, every day, encourages all workplaces – regardless of occupation, industry, location, and size – to prioritise safety in their job every day.

To help you make safety: every job, every day a reality, we’ll be stepping through the risk assessment process throughout October, with practical resources to guide discussions and activities that you can use in National Safe Work Month and beyond.

National Safe Work Month is for everyone! 

• If you’re an employer, talk to your staff about the campaign and any ideas or activities they have for the month, and get planning! This goes for sole traders and contractors too – you can use National Safe Work Month to review how you manage risks from physical and psychosocial hazards in your work. 

• If you’re a worker, talk to your WHS officer, health and safety representative, or your manager about how your workplace can participate in National Safe Work Month. 

• If you’re a health and safety representative (HSR), help your workplace to participate in National Safe Work Month by connecting with workers and your employer to plan activities and raise awareness. 

Week 1: Identify hazards

Identifying hazards is the first step in the risk management process and involves finding things and situations that could potentially cause harm to people. Harm can be physical, psychological or both. Even if you’ve already got a risk register, it’s important to regularly review it to see if anything has changed. 

Tip for aquatic facilities.

Regularly inspecting your aquatic facility and observing how things are done can help you identify what could or might go wrong. This week, consult your Lifeguards about any health and safety concerns or problems they have encountered in doing their work, and any near misses or incidents that have not been reported. You may be surprised what they have discovered but have failed to report.

And don’t forget to update your risk register.

Did you know?

The Aquatic Industry Services team at Royal Life Saving provides a range of risk services for your aquatic facility, including the recognised Aquatic Facility Safety Assessment. This assessment provides pool owners and operators with independent and expert advice benchmarked against the GSPO, Australian Standards and relevant State and Territory legislation. Contact the industry services team for more information about these services at risk@royalnsw.com.au.