Your Safety Matters: What Support Workers Need to Know About the New Healthcare and Social Assistance Code of Practice

A joint piece from Anzen Safety and Training and the Support Workers Association of Australia

Support work is one of the most meaningful jobs in Australia. It is also one of the most physically and emotionally demanding. The person-to-person nature of the work, the varied environments, the manual tasks, the emotional weight, and the often unpredictable situations that unfold on any given shift, all of it adds up.

For a long time, many of those risks have been quietly accepted as the nature of the role. The new Healthcare and Social Assistance Industry Code of Practice, approved by SafeWork NSW in February 2026, signals a shift in that thinking. It makes clear that these risks are real, they are manageable, and there are responsibilities on all sides to address them.

If you work as a support worker, or if you lead, employ, or coordinate support workers, you must under this code, as its now legislation.

What the Code Actually Is

A Code of Practice is more than guidance. Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), it is admissible in court proceedings and will be used to determine what was reasonably expected of a workplace when something goes wrong. 

This particular Code was developed specifically for the healthcare and social assistance industry, and it is one of the most comprehensive pieces of WHS guidance the sector has seen. It names the hazards support workers encounter every day and sets out practical expectations for how those hazards should be identified, assessed, and controlled.

What It Covers and Why It Matters

The Code addresses hazardous manual tasks, fatigue, psychosocial hazards, work-related violence and aggression, biological hazards, working in clients' homes, and more. For anyone working in disability support, aged care, or community services, that list will feel very familiar.

On people handling, the Code is clear: no worker should be lifting or restraining a person alone. The right equipment needs to be available, maintained, and actually accessible. Workarounds are not a solution.

On fatigue, it draws a direct comparison to aviation. Just as a pilot cannot safely fly when dangerously tired, a support worker cannot safely care for a person when exhausted. Managing fatigue is an organisational responsibility, not something that sits entirely with the individual worker. Rostering, workload design, and staffing levels all play a role.

On working in clients' homes, the Code requires pre-visit risk assessments and specific controls for known hazards, from challenging behaviours to unsafe flooring to hazardous chemicals. The duty of care extends beyond the office and into every environment where work takes place.

On psychosocial hazards, it goes beyond the obvious. Unclear role expectations, inadequate support from supervisors, high emotional demands with no recovery time, and a culture that discourages speaking up are all recognised as workplace hazards that need to be actively managed.

The Shared Responsibility Piece

One of the things we appreciate about this Code is that it frames safety as a shared responsibility. Leaders, employers, coordinators, and workers all have a role to play. That framing matters.

Good safety is not about compliance paperwork. It is about leaders who genuinely understand the risks in their operations, build systems that make safe work the easy option, and create environments where concerns can be raised and acted on without hesitation. It is also about workers who feel equipped, informed, and supported to do their job safely.

When both sides of that equation are working well together, the outcomes are better for everyone, including the clients being supported.

Where Things Often Break Down

The Code also acknowledges something important: workers frequently do not raise safety concerns, not because the concerns do not exist, but because of how it feels to raise them. Fear of being seen as difficult, uncertainty about what to report and how, casualised employment arrangements, language barriers, or simply a sense that nothing will change, all of these get in the way.

That is a system and culture issue, and it belongs to the whole organisation to address. A workplace where people feel safe to speak up is not a soft outcome. It is a safety control.

How Anzen Safety and Training and SWAA Are Working on This Together

This is exactly the kind of issue that both of our organisations care about, from different but complementary angles.

Anzen Safety and Training works with leaders and organisations to build practical safety systems that operate in the real world. The new Code provides a clear framework for providers in the healthcare and social assistance space to assess where their systems are strong and where the gaps are. Our work is about helping leaders move from compliance on paper to safety in practice, building capability at every level so that safe work becomes a natural part of operations rather than an add-on.

The Support Workers Association of Australia exists to amplify the voices of support workers, build community, and ensure workers have access to the knowledge, resources, and advocacy they deserve. Understanding what the Code means for you in practice is part of that. Knowing your rights, being able to ask informed questions, and having a community around you makes a real difference.

Together, our shared message is this: safety in the support sector works best when leaders and workers are genuinely engaged, informed, and working toward the same goal. The new Code gives everyone a clearer picture of what that looks like.

A Few Practical Starting Points

If you are a support worker, it is worth knowing whether your employer has reviewed their procedures in light of the new Code. It commenced in February 2026, so the conversation is timely. You also have the right to refuse work you reasonably believe is unsafe. That is not a grey area.

If you are a leader or provider, now is a good time to look honestly at your systems. Are your risk assessments current? Is your equipment maintained and accessible? Do your workers know how to raise a concern and trust that it will be heard? These are the kinds of questions the Code is asking.

And in both cases, you do not have to work through it alone.

SWAA is a great place for support workers to connect, stay informed, and find community. You can learn more at supportworkerassociation.org.

If your organisation needs practical support building safety systems that actually hold up in the day-to-day, reach out to the team at Anzen Safety and Training.

Anzen Safety and Training supports businesses to manage Workplace Health and Safety in a practical way that works in real operations, not just on paper. The Support Workers Association of Australia is a community-led movement dedicated to empowering, educating, and advocating for support workers across Australia.