Alcohol and Other Drugs workers

 

Regarding physical restraint:

• Mental Health Act (WA) | Helpful policies | See also ...
• Children and Community Services Act 2004 (WA)

Regarding registration

 

Civil Liability Act 2002 (WA)

For this act, an AOD worker fits the category of health professional. As an AOD worker, you can't be successfully sued if you do something (or omit doing something) as long as you follow competent professional practice at the time. This applies even if there are different ideas around on what is "competent professional practice." (However, there are exceptions for pregnant clients.)

But you can be successfully sued if you don't follow competent professional practice at the time.

See also duty of care and first aid

Direct quote

Division 7 — Professional negligence

5PA. Term used in this Division

In this Division —
"health professional" includes any of the following —
...
(m) any other discipline or profession practising in the health area which applies a body of learning.

5PB. Standard of care for health professionals

1. An act or omission of a health professional is not a negligent act or omission if it is in accordance with a practice that, at the time of the act or omission, is widely accepted by the health professional’s peers as competent professional practice.
2. Subsection (1) does not apply to an act or omission of a health professional in relation to informing a person of a risk of injury or death associated with —
1. the treatment proposed for a patient or a foetus being carried by a pregnant patient; or
2. a procedure proposed to be conducted for the purpose of diagnosing a condition of a patient or a foetus being carried by a pregnant patient.
3. Subsection (1) applies even if another practice that is widely accepted by the health professional’s peers as competent professional practice differs from or conflicts with the practice in accordance with which the health professional acted or omitted to do something.
4. Nothing in subsection (1) prevents a health professional from being liable for negligence if the practice in accordance with which the health professional acted or omitted to do something is, in the circumstances of the particular case, so unreasonable that no reasonable health professional in the health professional’s position could have acted or omitted to do something in accordance with that practice.
5. A practice does not have to be universally accepted as competent professional practice to be considered widely accepted as competent professional practice.
6. In determining liability for damages for harm caused by the fault of a health professional, the plaintiff always bears the onus of proving, on the balance of probabilities, that the applicable standard of care (whether under this section or any other law) was breached by the defendant.