If you, or one of your employees, got hurt on the job, early treatment and active management is a key part of a quick and safe return to the work place. At our centre, experienced Occupational Health doctors and physiotherapists take care of both simple and complex cases, offering medical advice, assessment and treatment when needed.

Many of our centres offer access to a broad range of facilities under the one roof which aids in the efficient and effective assessment and treatment of injuries:

• A multi-bed treatment room for triaging injuries
• Diagnostic imaging services if further investigation is required
• Physiotherapy for early treatment of injuries

Preparing to return to work is not always a straightforward process and sometimes more specific assessments and review is required.

What kind of assessments are available?

The Occupational Health team at our centre works closely with a number of experts to provide a range of assessments which may include:

• Injury Management Consultant – this is a comprehensive assessment of a worker to obtain detailed information about their injury and to determine their functional ability. This can be a single assessment or can be combined with other assessments such as Suitable Duties.
• Independent Medical Examinations – this is an independent medical assessment required when the existing information is not sufficient. At the end of the examination, a detailed report is provided identifying the cause of injury and ongoing medical needs of the injured party.
• Suitable Duties – this assessment determines the specific tasks an injured worker is capable of performing (without risk) when they return to work.
• Fitness for Duty – this assessment determines whether an injured worker can perform their normal work tasks (pre-injury), regardless of how or where the injury occurred.
• Medico-Legal – this assessment evaluates an injured worker’s ability to safely perform their normal duties. This type of assessment involves evidence-based reporting, detailing the impact of the injury and is used in potential compensation claims.
• Permanent Impairment – this assessment concludes the level of anatomical and functional loss a worker has experienced due to a workplace injury. This information is often used to quantify the financial payments that may be relevant in a claim.

If you are an employee who got hurt on the job and have any questions about injury management, or you are an employer looking for advice, call us today. Ask for the Occupational Health administrator who will be happy to assist with enquiries or bookings.

Did you know there are over 100,000 serious work claims across Australia? And over half of all reported workplace injuries are sprains and strains. What’s more the impact and cost of these claims can be significant. However, they can be minimised and, in many cases, avoided.

That’s where Functional Capacity Assessments come in.

Pre-employment physicals are comprehensive assessments that evaluate the physical capability of employees and candidates to carry out tasks required by their roles.

Conducted by experienced physiotherapists, this assessment is a positive prevention tool that supplements other medical assessments in the workplace injury management process.

Why do a Functional Capacity Assessment?

• To help you identify potential physical limitations or weaknesses of employees that can be managed in future.
• You can hire in confidence knowing the candidate can perform the required physical tasks.
• This assessment can help your company meet any OH&S legislative requirements associated with the role.

A quick guide to an Assessment.

Each assessment will depend on the individual’s role and requirements. However, the common components will include:

• Musculoskeletal screening questionnaire.
• Assessment of range of motion of all major joints.
• Postural assessment.
• Manual handling assessment.
• Hand grip strength assessment.
• Assessment of strength capacity when lifting.
• Body mass index calculation.

For more information on Functional Capacity Assessments, call us today on 03 5555 5555.

Drug and alcohol testing is key to your organisation’s health and safety compliance as well as incident management practices.

Primary can support you with accredited drug and alcohol testing at our medical centres. And because we are standards-based and AS/NZS 4308:2008 compliant, we abide by a standard of collection, detection and quantification of drugs in urine and saliva.

We give you access to a range of standards-based tests including:

• Instant urine drug screen (tested onsite with results in 5mins)
• Lab-based urine drug and alcohol test (sent to pathology)
• Chain of custody (Urinary Drug Screening)
• Confirmation testing at our NATA accredited labs
• Alcohol breathalyser testing
• Saliva-based drug testing

If any of these tests indicate the presence of drugs, we’ll send the results to one of our NATA accredited labs for confirmation testing.

The test is only the beginning.

Testing your employees is only one aspect of Drug and Alcohol safety. If your workforce is well educated and aware of your drug policy, then there’s a greater chance they’ll abide by it. WorkCover can provide you with professional advice on developing an appropriate policy for your organisation.

For more information on how Primary can partner with you to conduct Drug and Alcohol screenings in your organisation, call us today on 03 5555 5555.

Your people are your greatest asset and the spread of preventable illness through your business can have a significant impact on your productivity and employee wellbeing.

That’s why the team at Primary offer vaccination services that cover everything your workforce requires to help protect against preventable illnesses.

We start with serology testing of your employees to help identify who should be vaccinated. This is typically a blood test that tests for any existing immunity and whether an employee needs to be vaccinated or not.

Some of the vaccinations administered include:

• Flu
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Rapid Hepatits B + Hepatits A/B
• Tetanus
• Q fever

A Vaccination Program should be considered for employees in the following areas:

• First Aid
• Rural and remote sites, especially those working directly with livestock.
• Industries where exposure to sewage is regular.
• Food manufacturing and hospitality industries.

For more information on how we can partner with you to implement a Vaccination Program for your organisation, call us today on 03 5555 5555.

A vital element of the service.

Physiotherapy is a critical component of Occupational Health services offered at Primary’s medical centres.

Whether it’s assessing the physical suitability of a candidate for a role right through to managing an injured staff member safely and quickly back to work, physiotherapists can offer your business a comprehensive service.

An integrated offering.

We’ll work together to gain knowledge of the unique requirements of your business and employees before tailoring physiotherapy solutions that will help reduce the impact and cost of injuries to your business.

Pre-employment and Functional Assessments

These play an important part in identifying and mitigating, potential risks for your employees. Once conducted, physiotherapists will be able to guide you on the suitability of potential employees for the specific functional requirements of the role.

Injury Management and Rehabilitation

This is an important component of ensuring a quick and safe return to work for your employees. It will limit the impact and cost on your business and aid in the quick recovery and welfare of your employees. We use online tools to help monitor progress of the recovery program.

Preventative Programs

Primary will work with you to help implement preventative programs designed to reduce the risk of injury to employees. These could include:

• Manual handling training
• Conditioning and strength programs

What’s more, the team of independent physiotherapists will work with your managers to develop preventative training programs that help reduce the risk of staff injuries.

For more information on Primary’s comprehensive Physiotherapy Services, call us today on 03 5555 5555.

Medical assessments of drivers can be "Commercial Drivers Medicals", "Dangerous Goods Medicals", "Fatigue Medicals", or "Truck Drivers Medicals". Assessing fitness to drive is a standard that has been adopted by a number of different jurisdictions and for a number of different purposes. As a result, the term "Commercial Drivers Medical" could be requested in a number of different circumstances, and does not explain the reason why the assessment is being undertaken. However, certain categories of commercial vehicle license holders are required to undertake regular medical examinations. 

 * driving instructors

MROs are registered medical practitioners who have knowledge and understanding of:

 * substance abuse disorders and their management

 * A&OD testing procedures and methodologies

 * pharmacology of illicit drugs

 * ethical and privacy issues surrounding workplace drug and alcohol testing

 * laboratory methodology and quality control

 * legislation and recommended standards as they relate to A&OD programs

 * fitness for work and other medical-related safety issues

We can help you certify non-negative results and interpret test results including alternative medical explanations for laboratory-confirmed test results as well as issues relating to adulterated and substituted specimens.

Rail Safety Workers Medical Assessments are designed to ensure that all rail workers are safely able to perform the duties of their role, including the ability to hear instructions and maintain an awareness of their surroundings whilst in the rail corridor. As per the National Standard for Health Assessment of Rail Safety Workers, these medicals must be performed by accredited medical staff.

Rail CAT 1 Medical Assessment

Applies to rail safety workers who undertake safety critical work and whose ill health may result in sudden incapacity or collapse leading to a serious incident affecting public safety or the rail network. 

Rail CAT 2 Medical Assessments

Applies to rail safety workers who undertake safety critical work where sudden incapacity will not impact on the safety of the public or the rail network.

Rail CAT 3 Medical Assessment

Applies to rail safety workers who undertake non-safety critical work and whose health and fitness does not impact directly on the rail network but who are required to protect their own safety and that of other workers.

Our team of travel health professionals are highly skilled in travel medicine and understand how to keep travellers’ safe, wherever their destination. We have access to country-specific information which details the current vaccination requirement, risk of any disease, illness and travel threat which could impact your trip.

Pilots and Air traffic controllers (ATC) exercise must hold a current medical certificate. The Aviation Medicine Branch of Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is where applications for medical certification of pilots or ATCs are assessed and issued. Our doctor assesses how medical conditions and their treatments affect the safety of air navigation as detailed in the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations (CASR Part 67).

In some cases, monitoring of a condition or restrictions on pilot or ATC activities is necessary to ensure aviation safety.  It is important to be clear how CASA's role varies from that of the doctor caring for your health. Where an applicant's health state is under review by CASA, the length of a medical certificate may be varied at the discretion of the CASA Principal Medical Officer (PMO).

A Spirometry Assessment measures the degree of airflow obstruction. This Assessment is often used to assess for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and a number of other lung diseases including restrictive and obstructive lung diseases.