WorkCover return to work programs, Inner West Sydney
Getting back to your pre-injury duties, not just back to the building. The two are not the same and claims routinely stop at the first.
A return to work programme is a written, staged plan that takes you from where your capacity is now to your full pre-injury role. It sets out what you can do at each stage, for how long, and what has to change before the next step.
It is built with your employer rather than handed to them. A plan that ignores what the workplace can actually accommodate does not survive contact with a Monday morning.
What we build and who sees it
Everything here is documented weekly. That record is what keeps the insurer approving treatment and what protects you if the claim is later disputed.
Functional capacity assessment
Structured testing of what you can lift, carry, reach and sustain, and for how long. It produces numbers rather than impressions, which is what suitable duties should be written from.
Suitable duties advice
Specific recommendations your employer can act on: which tasks, what weight, how many hours, what to avoid. Vague restrictions get interpreted differently by everyone who reads them.
Graded upgrades
Hours and physical demand increase on a planned schedule, reviewed against how you are actually coping. Progress is documented so your certificate of capacity can be updated on evidence.
Workplace liaison
We speak to your employer, your case manager and any rehabilitation provider directly. Most stalled returns are a coordination failure, not a clinical one.
What everyone involved has to do
Under NSW workers compensation legislation your employer must provide suitable work where it is reasonably practicable, and the insurer must support your recovery at work. You in turn are expected to participate in planning and to attend treatment.
Knowing that these are obligations rather than favours changes the conversation. If your employer is not offering suitable duties, that is something your case manager can be asked about directly.
Where it goes wrong
The commonest failure is an upgrade to full duties with nothing in between, usually because the certificate ran out rather than because capacity was reached. The second commonest is a plan written without the employer in the room. Both are avoidable and both are what this programme is designed around.
Questions we get asked
What are suitable duties?
Who writes the return to work plan?
What if my employer has no suitable duties?
How long does a return to work programme take?
Return stalled partway?
Book a free 30 minute call. Tell us what duties you are on and what is blocking the next step.
Plan managed and self managed welcome · No referral needed · Five Dock & Gladesville