By CASEY NEILL
TWO Greater Dandenong businesses are in the running for WorkSafe Victoria awards.
Precision Ascend psychologist Liz Plail and Fulton Hogan Construction in Keysborough are among 30 finalists across 10 categories.
WorkSafe chief executive Denise Cosgrove said this year’s awards attracted a record 323 entries.
“The awards are an important opportunity for businesses to showcase and receive recognition for the fantastic work they’re doing in keeping workers safe or getting them back to work as soon as it’s safe to do so,” she said.
Ms Plail is in the running for the Treating Health Practitioner Achievement award.
Precision Ascend in Noble Park provides a pain management program to injured workers and promotes return to work as a treatment and a goal.
“I utilise a biopsychosocial approach, in conjunction with my colleagues – an occupational physician and a physiotherapist – to manage pain,” Ms Plail said.
The program has resulted in decreased depression, anxiety, stress, pain and fear avoidance scores, as well as a dramatic improvement in functional and certified capacity.
“The primary focus of mine … is return to work,” she said.
“This goal is promoted as treatment in the restoration of self-esteem, identity, purpose and connection as well as improving functional capacity and physical conditioning,” she said.
Fulton Hogan Construction is vying for the award for the best solution to a specific workplace health and safety issue.
Its work includes road construction, pipelines and infrastructure and its award nomination is for its solution to issues with pumping concrete to fill anti-skid block form work under bridge beams.
Workers had to manually handle the boom pump pipe and/or bucket the concrete in place, which meant dealing with the concrete pump set up and managing traffic.
Engineers and workers were involved in resolving the issue – cut outs are placed in the bridge spans at conception and designed in “as built”.
“This enabled the pump to pump directly to the form work below and not have to set up a second time … and removed the manual handling from the task,” the entry said.
It also removed the need for traffic management.
The winners will be announced at a presentation on 23 October, during WorkSafe’s annual safety event, Work Safe Week.
