Foundations of Workplace Safety

This unit introduces core concepts of health and safety in healthcare administration and management, covering hazard recognition across common workplace risks, the basics of risk assessment, and the components of an effective safety management system. It prepares students to assess organizational safety culture, determine when to seek specialist assistance, and design simple, justifiable controls that support legal compliance and business objectives.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze workplace health and safety contexts by identifying and classifying common hazards (e.g., manual handling, violence, working at height, machinery, electrical, fire, chemical, noise/vibration) and describing their likely consequences in healthcare administrative settings
• Evaluate an organization’s safety culture and decision pathways by comparing options for managing risk internally versus seeking external assistance and recommending escalation criteria based on severity and likelihood
• Develop basic safe systems of work and complete a simple risk assessment (including an office risk assessment), selecting and justifying at least three control measures using hierarchy-of-controls reasoning
• Apply monitoring and reporting techniques to demonstrate how to track safety performance, conduct basic incident investigation, and communicate findings to support legal compliance and business benefit