For Australia Post, the transition from a public relations coup to a public relations nightmare was abrupt.

In September 2009, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission (SRCC) recognised Australia Post’s efforts to create a nationally consistent approach to rehabilitation management with a Rehabilitation and Return to Work Award.

In October 2009, amidst allegations that injured and ill workers were being bullied, manipulated and pressured back to work before it was safe for them to return, a Senate Standing Committee chaired by Senator Anne McEwen opened an Inquiry into the “practices and procedures of Australia Post over the past three years in relation to the treatment of injured and ill workers”.

How did this abrupt transition come about? And, five months on, how is the Inquiry progressing?

Australia Post is a self-insurer under the Comcare scheme. A major plank of its injury management program is the use of the practitioner network organisation InjuryNET to source what it refers to as Facility Nominated Doctors, or FNDs.

FNDs receive training in RTW and are taken on tours of Australia Post worksites and educated about the organisation. Controversially, Australia Post can require employees to attend fitness for duty assessments with an FND, even if the employee’s own doctor has certified them as unfit for work.

On paper, both Australia Post and InjuryNET are committed to minimising ‘unnecessary disability...through a coordinated effort which is underpinned by education, early intervention, early return to work and evidence-based practice’ (InjuryNET’s submission to the Senate Committee). This reads like best practice—which explains the public relations coup.

However, good intentions and well written injury management policies don’t necessarily translate into a system that is perceived as having the wellbeing of ill and injured workers at its heart—and this explains the public relations nightmare.  

The Inquiry’s terms of reference include investigating allegations that Australia Post staff have been prematurely forced back to work in unsuitable duties and that bonuses paid to managers for reductions in Lost Time Injury stats (LTIs) inappropriately impact the recommendations they make about return to work. (Kevin Jones addresses this issue in a RTWMatters article.)  

It also seems likely—although the terms of reference are circumspect—that the Inquiry intends to investigate allegations that Australia Post’s use of FND’s amounts to doctor shopping.

This perception has arisen because Australia Post can require employees to attend fitness for duty assessments with an FND after their own doctor has made an assessment of their capacity to work.   The Communications Union (CEPU) alleges that this allows Australia Post to insist on a premature return to work for some workers with compensable injuries, while having others with non-compensable injuries certified as unfit for work with a view to terminating their employment on medical grounds.

As yet there is no indication as to whether the Senate Committee views Australia Post’s injury management processes as Machiavellian money-savers or as evidence of a sensible, evidence-based approach.

To date, the Inquiry has made public 28 submissions of the 32 received, of which:

• 2 are from doctors who are in the InjuryNet network, writing in support of the program;
• 1 is from a doctor experienced in RTW, expressing opposition to InjuryNet’s approach;
• 8 are from aggrieved employees, writing about their experiences of Australia Post’s injury management and workers’ comp processes;
• 3 are from union branches opposed to the Australia Post / InjuryNet management of workplace injury;
• 1 is from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, addressing workers’ compensation issues relevant to Comcare employees more broadly;
• 1 is from a law firm which has represented Australia Post employees and is highly critical of Australia Post’s approach;
• 3 are from the organisations at the centre of the inquiry, writing in support of the Australia Post / InjuryNET approach to managing workplace injury—InjuryNET, Australia Post and Comcare (although Comcare does not directly endorse all aspects of the program);
• 1 is from Dr Jennifer Christian of the 60 Summits Program, who has worked with InjuryNET and endorses the InjuryNET / Australia Post approach; and
• 2 are more general submissions, comprising one from the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM), presenting their draft policy on “Helping People Return to Work: Using evidence for better outcomes” and another from Dr Lisa Doupe of Canada’s Prevention Wellness Rehabilitation Health Consultants Inc.

Submissions in support of InjuryNET and Australia Post emphasise that the approach taken is evidence-based best practice, however according to many of the submissions that express the contrary view, it is the way in which the organisation’s injury management policies are implemented that is of concern.

Notable criticisms include that:

• Claim’s managers tend to approach claims in an adversarial manner and to personalise the claim’s process (Ryan Carlisle Thomas Lawyers);
• The focus is on pressuring workers to return to work, not on achieving an optimum outcome for workers and employers (Ryan Carlisle Thomas Lawyers);
• The negative attitudes of claim’s managers impact the attitude of supervisors, managers and, by extension, co-workers (Ryan Carlisle Thomas Lawyers);
• “Suitable duties” are often futile and demeaning (Ryan Carlisle Thomas Lawyers);
• For employees, the system feels like a battleground, leading to depression, anxiety and other mental health problems;
• Workers feel confused, affronted and mistrustful about the process of referral to FNDs;
• There is a huge amount of cynicism about management focus on reducing LTIs; and
• Management threaten, yell at and harass ill and injured workers.

The Senate Committee was due to report on the 2nd of February 2010, but has sought an extension and will now present its findings on March 17. Whatever the outcome, it is likely to be Australia Post’s public relations nightmare, rather than its public relations coup, that lingers longest in the memory.  

Dr Mary Wyatt and Gabrielle Lis of RTWMatters contributed to the draft policy document that forms the basis of AFOEM's submission to the Inquiry--“Helping People Return to Work: Using evidence for better outcomes”--and Dr Wyatt has also been invited to address the Inquiry at a public hearing on the 12th of February, 2010.