> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whsbrief.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Last Week of Safe Work Month: Are Your Manual Task Assessments Still True? - URL: https://www.whsbrief.com/the-last-week-of-safe-work-month-are-your-manual-task-assessments-still-true/ - Published: 2026-10-26T22:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-26T22:30:00.000Z - Description: Safe Work Month closes with a focus on musculoskeletal disorders, which makes this the week to check whether your manual task assessments still match the work. - Author: WHS Brief - Tags: blog National Safe Work Month enters its final week today. WorkSafe ACT has given its last weekly theme to musculoskeletal disorders, running from 26 to 31 October. The regulator notes these disorders make up a significant share of accepted private sector workers' compensation claims in the ACT. They cover injuries to muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, nerves and blood vessels. Earlier weeks in the ACT program covered small business, psychosocial hazards and falls from height. The falls snapshot alone showed 1,406 WHS notices over three years, 93% of them in construction. The last week of any awareness month has a strange energy. The posters are a little faded. The toolbox talks have been given. It is easy to let the final theme slide. I think that would be a mistake this year, because musculoskeletal injury is the hazard most likely to be sitting quietly in your risk register with an assessment nobody has looked at for years. ### When Was Your Manual Task Assessment Last True? Manual task risk assessments age badly. A task gets assessed when a new line or a new role is set up. Then the volumes change. The product gets heavier. A second shift is added. A trolley breaks and is never replaced. The paper still says the risk is controlled. Ask yourself about the most repetitive task in your workplace: - When was the manual task assessment for it last reviewed against the way it is done now? - Has the weight, frequency or duration changed since then? - Were the workers who do the task involved in the review or only the supervisor? - Are the controls listed in the assessment still physically there, like lifting aids, adjustable benches or job rotation? ### Strenuous Is Not the Only Signal WorkSafe ACT's prompt is to review assessments for repetitive and strenuous work. Strenuous tasks get noticed because people complain. Repetitive tasks are harder. A worker scanning items, packing boxes or keying data may never lift anything heavy. The injury builds over months. By the time it shows up as a claim, the task has been done the same way thousands of times. That is why the claims data matters. If you have access to your own injury and early reporting data, sort it by body part and by task. Shoulders, wrists and lower backs clustered around one role usually point to one task that needs redesign rather than one worker who needs retraining. ### Use the Momentum Before It Fades Safe Work Month also produced some tools that will outlast October. SafeWork NSW and icare launched the free Safety Speakers Program on 19 October. It brings injured workers and bereaved families into workplaces to tell their own stories. It is available to employers holding an icare workers compensation policy. The NHVR used the month to release fatigue figures showing 5,835 fatigue-related offences nationally in the last financial year, up almost 16%. None of these are one-week items. The question is whether anything you started this month will still be running in November. - Which of the month's actions has a named owner and a date after 31 October? - Is there an end-of-year safety day or 2027 induction refresh that a lived-experience speaker could anchor? - Did any hazard raised this month get added to the risk register with a review date? ### One Thing to Do This Week Pick one repetitive task. Watch it being done for ten minutes. Count the lifts, reaches or twists. Then open the manual task assessment and compare. If the numbers on paper are not the numbers you counted, rewrite the assessment with the people doing the task before the month closes on Saturday. When Safe Work Month comes around again next October, what will you be able to point to that changed because of this one?