An analysis of claims made under the NSW government’s iCare scheme in the nine years to June 2021 found psychological injury claims comprised 9.5 per cent of claims in healthcare,aged and disability care,and social work,compared with 5.5 per cent in other industries.
In the 2020-21 financial year,claims in the health and social assistance industry were 2.5 times those in other industries.
As the state nears the end of the third year of the pandemic,a separate wellbeing survey of NSW public service employees found only 30 per cent of people working in the state’s health system disagreed they were experiencing burnout.
Between July 2012 and June 2021,psychological injury claims by nurses and midwives rose by 150 per cent,according to the claims analysis as part of the Design for Care project by researchers at Sydney,Monash and Curtin universities,the highest of any profession.
The most common types of injuries were stress and anxiety,however paramedics were most likely to claim specifically for post-traumatic stress disorder.
More than half of psychological injury claims resulted in the worker taking 13 weeks or more off work,significantly longer than the average for physical injuries. The researchers said time taken off work related to the claims resulted in 170,000 lost working hours during the nine-year study period:the equivalent of 3540 lost full-time equivalent working years.
“If we could prevent just a fraction of that,it would really assist the demands on the workforce,” said Professor Alex Collie,a Monash academic who co-authored the study,stressing the data was just the “tip of the iceberg” when it came to the psychological impact of caring work.
“This is only the resulting workplace health and safety claims. I suspect if we were to look at other data sources we would see a higher prevalence of psychological health challenges,” he said.
University of Sydney Associate Professor Anya Johnson,who is working with a group of care providers to develop strategies as part of the next stage of the project,agreed.
“There’s an awful lot of psychosocial risk below that which is not coming up through workers compensation,it’s coming up through absence and turnover,” she said.
Johnson said the framework being used to improve workplace practice,developed at Curtin University,focused on providing people with stimulating work,encouraging their feeling of mastery of tasks and giving them greater control over their work.
“We are not talking about ‘is everyone getting enough breaks’. Obviously,that is critical,but if you have a break and go back into the same environment,you’re not going to recover,” she said.
A NSW Health spokesperson said it took the safety of all of its workers seriously,noting its workers’ compensation data indicated psychological injuries claims recorded between January and October were 24 per cent lower than for the same period in 2021.
Brad Wakeling,national manager of health and safety at RegisCare,said about half the aged care provider’s reported incidents were related to violence or aggression from residents or visitors.
Recent partnerships with organisations like Dementia Australia have helped the business to design working conditions which reduce these risks. But Wakeling said the pandemic had really revealed the lengths staff were willing to go to for residents,even at the expense of their own mental health.
“In an industry with so many empathetic people,they will run themselves into the ground for their residents,so we need to make sure we design in these stop gaps,” he said.
Results of the NSW public sector employee survey,People Matter,showed only 30 per cent of more than 76,000 health employees – just under half the workforce – disagreed they felt “burned out by[their] work” when surveyed in August and September.
Health Services Union NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said burnout was common after the pandemic exposed cracks in the system.
“The workforce is exhausted ... people are simply not being paid what they’re worth,and that’s triggering an attraction and retention crisis that’s compounding staff fatigue,” he said.
General secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Shaye Candish said it had been “another challenging year” for frontline health staff and this had resulted in widespread burnout.
“Our members are sick and tired of being treated like they don’t matter,are replaceable,and their skills are replicable in a short course. What nurses and midwives do matters to patients and communities across the state,” she said.
The NSW Health spokesperson said the response from health workers to the question about burnout was “consistent with the rest of the public sector”.
They said NSW Health was finalising a mental health workplace framework in consultation with workers,adding that the federal government already provided a Beyond Blue-led support service to all staff and the state government had invested in a number of other wellbeing initiatives in recent years.
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