Workplace Health and Safety: Legislation, Intervention, and Policies

Running head: WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY
WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY
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Introduction:
Over the last two decade, workplace health and safety has gained immense importance
because of the high prevalence of workplace injury and associated financial loss (Loeppke et al.,
2015). To improve the workplace area and environment, several laws and regulations were
established which increases the protection of workers and increase the welfare of workers in the
workplace. According to, every 7-second worker is injured on the job and it is increasing rapidly
(Shea et al., 2015). The most common work-related injury in fall injury and causes 15% of
accidental deaths in Australia (Terry et al., 2015). Unfortunately, the majority of the workplace
injuries are preventable with proper precautions and accurate legislations as well as policies.
Taking appropriate preventive actions can spare workers needless pain and suffering (Hofmann,
Burke & Zohar, 2017). Moreover, the literature documented that every workplace injury is costly
and damage the quality of life of injured workers. Implementation of proper preventive
measures, risk assessments, and policies will reduce the high cost of workplace injury and restore
the incidents of workplace injury (Ross, 2018). The purpose of the paper is to provide proper
legislation, intervention, and policies with the assistance of three hypothetic scenarios. These
three case scenario will be discussed in detail in the following paragraphs.
Discussion:
First case study:
The case study represents sudden injury of Leon, who experienced fall during shopping
in Eldorado Shopping Centre. The contributing factor of sudden fall is rain which caused the
wet floor or in the foyer of the Shopping Centre. However, he sustained an injury.
Question 1:

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Considering the first case study, Leon can take lawful action against the shopping
Centre for the negligence. A legal claim can be made through a personal injury lawsuit or any
insurance action and accountable organization is required to provide compensation for damage.
Taking an insight into the situation, the floor of the shopping mall near the foyer was made of
polished granite and a polished surface is very smooth and slick when wet. Due to rain, the
polished floors were wet that resulted in the sudden fall of Leon. According to Amponsah-
Tawiah and Mensah,(2016), signage should be placed on the wet floor in order to made
customers or public awareness of the wet place and prevent sudden injuries, highlighting
negligence of the authority. No staffs were present in that place to clean the wet floor to make it
dry, which could prevent the injury (Pescud et al., 2015). A property owner has a legal
obligation to keep the property premises free from known hazard and he must act within a
reasonable time to discover the hazard swell as mitigate the problem in order to prevent any
unwanted damage (Kunyk et al., 2016). Hence, at this juncture, Leon has the legal right to take
lawful action against it negligence (duty of care and personal injury lawsuit). However, in order
to make an injury claim for negligence, Leon must provide an evidence of damage caused by
injuries, documentation of injuries caused by slip and fall and related expenses, record of all
medical treatment which include emergency visit, physicians , hospital visits , documentation of
time missed and record of typical income for supporting loss of finance and testimony from a
medical expert regarding cause of injury and negligence of property owner (Howard, 2017). He
can claim for medical care or compensation of treatment.
In the current context, although Leon was sustained the injury Leon would be entitled to
hip injury if he suddenly falls, FOOSH injury and brain injury. As discussed by Lay et al.
(2016), hip injury is a common form of injury where hip labral tear damage is observed

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surrounding the bony edge of the socket in the pelvis. This is the most common kind of injury
from slipper which may lead to fracture and heavy amount of medical damage. Another type of
damage is FOOSH injury (fall onto an outstretched hand) which can be observed because of
sudden fall and it occurs when he falls down and try to prevent the fall by reaching down the
hand. This injury may result in upper extremities damage such as sprain or fracture (Cooklin et
al., 2017). Leon would be entitled to have a brain injury if he suddenly falls down. Hence, he
can take legal action again the property owner because of fall on the basis of the personal injury
lawsuit.
Question 2:
Considering the above scenario, it is a legal obligation of the property owner to mitigate
any risk of known hazard which was present in the property premises (Cooklin et al., 2017).
Hence, after sued by Leon, the property owner of the shopping mall cannot use counter argument
to avoid the legal issues. In this case, application of defence may prevent injuries and loss of
finance in the future. The defences include putting signage in front of the foyer which was in an
unsafe condition, drying the floor immediately by eliminating rainwater and recruiting staffs or
securities to assist the customers or workers for avoiding the unwanted injuries. In this case, it is
the responsibility of the property owner to evaluate the place in order to mitigate the risk of fall
and it can be done by recruiting risk assessment officer (Okun, Guerin & Schulte, 2016).. After
risk assessment, it is required to dry the floors by staffs to make it dry and put signage of danger
in front of it for avoiding stepping into the place. Lastly, the property owner of the shopping
mall can renovate the floor for making it rough, preventing the possibility of slip and fall injury
in this case.
Second case study: