Duty of care refers to the responsibility of each person to do everything within their power to ensure a safe and healthy environment.

Duty of care is a moral or legal obligation to anticipate possible causes of injury and illness in the workplace and to do everything reasonably practicable to remove or minimise these possible causes of harm. This duty of care is written into the Workplace Health and Safety Act 2011 as obligations. All adults in a workplace are legally responsible for workplace health and safety issues.  Duty of care cannot be delegated.  That means you cannot pass on that responsibility to anyone else. Employees must follow instructions and act in a way that does not place at risk their own health and safety or that of any other person. 

The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 imposes a specific duty on employers to exercise due diligence to ensure that it meets its work health and safety obligations. Part of that is making sure you're trained to know how to be safe, to keep others around you safe, what to do in the event of a fire or medical emergency and who to tell if you witness unsafe work practices. 

Apart from just being good practice, as an organisation Citipointe must:

• provide and maintain a safe work environment which eliminates or at least minimises risks to health and safety. The church's job is to know all about health and safety matters and ensure the best processes are in place to respond promptly to incidents, hazards and risks;

• have, and use, appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks arising from work;

• promote and encourage safe use, handling, storage and transport of plant, structures and substances;

• understand the operations being carried out and the hazards and risks associated with the operations;

• provide information, training, instruction and supervision to protect persons from risks arising from work; and

• routinely consulting, in order to maintain effective and co-operative relationships between Citipointe and its workers, and with other duty holders, on health and safety matters in the workplace.