SafeWork NSW continues to provide a range of free advice and support services throughout the Hunter to help businesses and workers keep a safe workplace, and meet all their health and safety responsibilities. There are many tools available from webinars, safety alerts, advisory visits, rebates, mentoring, videos and more. SafeWork has information on the types of high risk work that require licences, how and when to notify about high risk work, what types of plant need registration, and how to get professional training with RTOs.

If you are a sole trader or run a small business with up to 50 staff, you could be eligible for a free advisory visit.

Many Hunter businesses have taken up this offer, and got practical workplace safety, and workers compensation and injury management advice relevant to them. You and your local SafeWork officer work through any areas of concern you have and together create a basic safety improvement plan to find solutions unique to your business. An advisory visit is also one of the ways you can qualify for the small business rebate program.

If you’ve got a great idea to make your workplace safer, the small business rebate supports businesses with up to $500 to buy and install eligible safety solutions to address a safety problem in their workplace. It is open to sole traders or small businesses with up to 50 full time employees or equivalent.

There is a wide range of safety solutions eligible for purchase and and/or installation under this program, including items that assist with manual tasks, hazardous noise, falls from heights, slips, trips and falls, injuries from moving objects and chemicals and dangerous goods.

Learn more about work health and safety by joining in one of SafeWork’s webinars! One of the many benefits of a webinar is that travel is not required - you can access it from anywhere you have an internet connection. Recent topics have included skin and sun protection, managing hazardous manual tasks, how to get healthy at work, ergonomics and more… it’s a simple, interactive way to get safety information right at your desk.

So even though the name has changed, you can still access the same advice and services. Call 13 10 50 or go online - safework.nsw.gov.au – for all the help you need.