Across Queensland, many employers are looking for practical ways to strengthen their approach to workplace health, safety and injury management – without adding complexity or significant cost.
What is less well known is that there is an established, fully funded program designed to do exactly that.
The Injury Prevention and Management (IPaM) program, delivered by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, provides businesses with direct, hands-on support to improve how they prevent and manage workplace injuries.
For many organisations, this program offers clearer picture of what is working, what is not, and where to focus effort to achieve meaningful improvement.
What is the IPaM program?
IPaM is a free advisory service available to Queensland employers with a WorkCover policy.
At a practical level, the program connects your business with an experienced advisor who works alongside you to assess your current systems and capability. This is not an audit in the traditional sense – it is a structured, collaborative review designed to identify opportunities for improvement.
The focus is twofold:
- Preventing workplace injuries before they occur by strengthening hazard identification, risk controls and safety culture
- Improving how injuries are managed when they do occur, with a strong emphasis on early intervention and return to work
This dual focus is critical. Many businesses have elements of both in place, but they are often not well integrated. IPaM helps align prevention and injury management into a single, more effective system.
What does participation actually involve?
Programs like this are often assumed to be resource intensive or disruptive.
In practice, IPaM is structured to fit around business operations and is delivered in stages, allowing employers to implement change progressively.
A typical engagement involves:
- An initial consultation to understand your operations, workforce profile and key risks
- A structured systems review, which may include documentation, processes and on-site observations
- A gap analysis identifying where systems are underdeveloped, inconsistent or not effectively embedded
- Development of a tailored improvement plan, prioritised based on risk and business impact
- Ongoing advisor support to assist with implementation, problem solving and refinement
- A final review to measure progress and support longer-term sustainability
A key feature of the program is that it is not a one-off intervention. There is a lifecycle approach, with early intensive support followed by ongoing check-ins to ensure changes are embedded and maintained.
What areas does the program cover?
IPaM takes a whole-of-system view. Rather than focusing on a single issue, it examines how different elements of safety and injury management interact.
Depending on your business, this may include:
- Hazard identification and risk management – ensuring risks are systematically identified, assessed and controlled, particularly for high-risk tasks such as manual handling
- Safety leadership and accountability – clarifying roles, responsibilities and expectations across all levels of the business
- Consultation and worker engagement – strengthening mechanisms for workers to raise issues and contribute to solutions
- Incident reporting and investigation – improving how incidents are captured, analysed and used to prevent recurrence
- Return to work planning and suitable duties – ensuring structured, timely and compliant processes are in place
- Early intervention – supporting workers at the earliest point to minimise the impact and duration of injury
- Monitoring and continuous improvement – using data and insights to track performance and drive ongoing improvement
For many employers, the value lies in understanding not just whether these elements exist, but whether they are working together effectively in practice.
What does this look like in practice?
Case studies from the IPaM program demonstrate how this translates into real business outcomes.
For example, airline services provider Oceania Aviation undertook a significant safety and systems review through IPaM after experiencing rising workers’ compensation costs. By focusing on hazard identification, improving reporting processes and strengthening safety systems, the business reduced its workers’ compensation claim costs by 47% over a two-year period.
Similarly, organisations such as Cook Medical and Cater Care have used the program to better manage manual handling risks, strengthen early intervention approaches, and shift their focus from reactive injury management to proactive capacity management.
A consistent theme across these examples is not just improved compliance, but measurable improvements in:
- Claim frequency and duration
- Premium performance
- Workforce engagement
- Overall safety culture
These outcomes reinforce that structured, supported approaches to safety and injury management deliver tangible operational and financial benefits.
Who is the program for?
The program is deliberately broad in its accessibility.
It is available to:
- Small, medium and large businesses
- Organisations across all industries
- Employers at any stage of safety maturity
Importantly, you do not need to have a sophisticated system in place to participate. Many businesses engage with IPaM precisely because they want to build capability or address emerging issues such as increasing claims or premium pressure.
A simple first step
For employers looking to strengthen their approach to safety and injury management, engaging with IPaM is a practical and low-risk starting point.
There is:
- No cost to participate
- No requirement to overhaul systems overnight
- No expectation of a perfect starting position
What the program provides is structured insight and practical support, helping you understand where your risks sit and what actions will deliver the greatest impact.
Further details and access to IPaM program can be found here.
