WHS in the home

The general exemption for homes, dwellings, units apartments, houses.

It’s a moot question whether a home is a workplace and therefore required to be safe and accessible. The community like to think of our house as a home and not a workplace and this is reflected in the exemption of most freestanding houses from the Premises Standards. There may be an issue in housing when a house becomes a workplace or an apartment building with accommodation and communal areas.

However, generally speaking, the Premises standards doesn’t extend to single dwellings, townhouses or villa units.  Local authorities may require that a number or percentage of dwellings within a development be accessible, adaptable or visitable to fulfil their demographic and health objectives, however as yet we haven’t seen this extend to WHS.

WHS and Adaptable Housing

The AS 4299 Adaptable Housing standard was prepared to guide designers on creating places that would better facilitate independent living for people with impairments and age related conditions otherwise restricted by stock housing. AS 4299 Adaptable Housing-1995 considers that assistance or unpaid help maybe required on site but generally does not provide for a caregiver or consider the house as a workplace.

From AS 4299 Adaptable Housing-1995, comment on the health and safety of care givers are limited to the following;-

  • PP4 ‘The concept will provide safer houses, Adaptable houses will have features, dimensions and materials designed for safety and ease of use’.
  • Cl. 3.7.1 …a car-parking space…is necessary to enable a driver to alight, open the passenger side door, and assist a person with a disability into a wheelchair.
  • Cl. 3.3.1 (b) Access for emergency vehicles.

Regardless of statutory requirements, we think its good practice to ask clients whether there is history of incidents such as slips trips or falls, and determine if the client/s has any particular conditions that needs to be accommodated such as arthritis or vision loss.  

Also ask if they have a therapeutic good such as a walking frame and determine who or what level of care will need to be accommodated such as nursing, cleaning, deliveries, family support.

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