Health monitoring duties for persons conducting a business or undertaking

Health monitoring is the monitoring of a worker to identify changes in their health status because of exposure to certain substances. It involves a registered medical practitioner with experience in health monitoring to examine and monitor the health of your workers to see if the exposure to hazardous chemicals at work is affecting their health.

You must ensure that health monitoring is carried out or supervised by an appropriate registered medical practitioner. If your workers have health monitoring regularly, it is called a
health monitoring program.

The registered medical practitioner will choose the best way to monitor your worker’s health and may use more than one way to monitor your worker’s health. They will choose the best
way by looking at:

• the regulatory requirements under WHS Regulations, including Schedule 14 requirements for specified hazardous chemicals
• the type of chemical involved
• the way your worker is exposed
• the level of exposure
• if the work environment includes control methods or equipment to reduce the exposure
• if it is possible to use a proactive way to monitor adverse health effects.

The Health monitoring duties for persons conducting a business or undertaking: Guide explains what your duties are for monitoring the health of your workers under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (the WHS Act), Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022 and Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 (the WHS Regulations).

WorkSafe is the regulator for WHS legislation in Western Australia.