Australia National Standard for Health Assessment of Rail Safety Workers 2024 4.5: Musculoskeletal disorders: assess each worker's capacity against the inherent musculoskeletal requirements of their tasks as the operator has defined them (limb, neck and back soundness and balance for most Category 1 roles; limited capacity for control room roles), considering chronic impairments, pain and its effect on attention, medication, and emergency demands such as moving over ballast and leaving a cab; use functional or practical assessment where appropriate and apply the criteria in Table 14

What does 4.5 require?

Musculoskeletal disorders may prevent a worker performing the prescribed tasks or responding to emergencies, and acute or chronic pain also affects attention, concentration and emotional response, so pain and its treatment are part of the assessment. Because capacity needs vary widely, every job is assessed for its inherent musculoskeletal requirements and the operator communicates them: most Category 1 roles need soundness of limbs, neck and back and good balance, for example driving requires sitting and operating controls, walking on uneven track and ballast, coupling, bending to check bogies, entering and leaving the cab including a large drop in an emergency, and moving rapidly from an oncoming train; shunting and flagman duties need rapid movement over ballast, operating points and couplings and placing detonators; tram driving needs prolonged sitting and boarding and alighting; train controlling needs only screen, keyboard and telephone capacity. Chronic impairment from amputation, arthritis, ankylosis, deformity or chronic back pain, muscle tone, spasm, sitting tolerance, endurance and medication effects are considered, a functional or practical assessment may be used where the clinical picture is unclear, and the fitness criteria in Table 14 determine when impairment that interferes with the required activities makes a worker not Fit for Duty Unconditional and when Fit for Duty Subject to Review may be given on the treating doctor's opinion and the nature of the work. The Standard does not replace the operator's work health and safety duty of care.