Every stalled claim has a return to work plan in the file. That is the uncomfortable truth of this industry: the document exists, the boxes are ticked, and the worker is still at home. Between us, across clinical practice and occupational rehabilitation, we have read more of these plans than we can count, and the ones that work share a short list of features the rest lack. Here is that list, stated plainly.
By Andrew Ellis and David Parkinson, Directors, Redux Rehab · July 2026
The most common failure is vagueness. Duties described as light duties as tolerated, hours described as gradual upgrade, progression described as as per medical advice. Nobody reading that plan knows what the worker is doing on Tuesday, so nobody can tell when it is off track, and a plan nobody can see failing is a plan nobody fixes.
The second failure is that the plan was written for the file, not the workplace. It satisfies the template, it reads correctly in an audit, and it bears no resemblance to how the actual shift, the actual roster and the actual team operate. Supervisors quietly work around it within a week, and from that point the document and reality diverge for good.
The third failure is that nobody who has to live with the plan helped build it. A plan the worker was handed rather than involved in gets compliance at best, not commitment. A plan the supervisor never saw before it landed gets neither.
Specific duties, named. Not light duties: the actual tasks, listed, each one checked against the certificate of capacity restrictions. If the certificate says no lifting above 5kg, the plan says which tasks stay out and who does them instead, so the worker is never improvising under pressure on the floor.
Staged progression with dates. Real plans move: hours step up, restrictions step down, and each stage carries a start date, a review date and the functional criteria for moving to the next one. When capacity and plan drift apart, the review date is where they get realigned, and it is in the calendar before anyone needs it.
Everyone signed on, genuinely. The worker helped shape it, the supervisor can run it inside a real roster, it sits inside what the nominated treating doctor has certified and the doctor has actually seen it, and the treating practitioners know what functional gains the next stage needs. Signatures gathered by email chase are not the same thing as agreement, and every experienced case manager can tell the difference from the outcomes.
Scan any return to work plan against five questions. Could a stranger tell exactly what the worker does on shift tomorrow? Is there a next stage with a date attached? Does anything in the plan exceed the current certificate? Has anything changed since the last version, or is it a photocopy of itself? And when did the workplace last actually see it?
A no anywhere in the first four, or a long silence on the fifth, is where the stall is hiding. The fix is rarely more paperwork. It is usually a conversation at the workplace, a duties list rebuilt against the real job, or a progression that finally gives the worker and the doctor something concrete to aim at.
We build plans at the workplace, not from a desk. That means seeing the job, talking to the supervisor who will run the plan, matching every duty to the current certificate, and setting progression stages that the treating team agrees are functionally realistic. Then we stay on it: reviews happen on the dates written, and when reality moves, the plan moves the same week.
It is a directors only service by design. The people who assess the workplace, write the plan and review it are the same two directors who answer the phone, with more than twenty years of combined clinical and occupational rehabilitation experience between them: one a physiotherapist and clinic owner who treats injured workers every week, the other a career occupational rehabilitation and injury management consultant. If a return to work plan on one of your claims reads like decoration, call us and we will tell you plainly what a plan like that usually needs.
In NSW, every employer must have a return to work program: larger Category 1 employers must develop a tailored program in consultation with their workers, while smaller employers can adopt SIRA's standard program. Individual recover at work plans are then developed cooperatively: employer, worker, nominated treating doctor and insurer, often with a workplace rehabilitation provider driving the detail. In practice, someone has to own the follow through, and that is exactly the role a rehabilitation provider is engaged to play.
At minimum, on every certificate of capacity cycle, because the plan must always sit inside current certified capacity. In practice, good plans are reviewed at each progression date, which is typically every two to four weeks in the active phase. A plan that has not changed in two months on an open claim is a red flag in itself.
First find out why, functionally: is it capacity, confidence, the duties themselves, or something in the workplace? That is a clinical and workplace question, not a compliance one. The answer decides whether the fix is treatment, plan redesign, workplace intervention or a case conference. What never works is leaving the plan unchanged and hoping.
Yes. Suitable work can include modified duties, alternative roles, different sites, adjusted hours and in some roles a home based component, provided it is meaningful work consistent with the certificate. The test is whether it maintains connection to work and progresses capacity, not whether it looks like the pre injury job from day one.
Early, when any of these appear: no clear suitable duties, a plan that has stalled or keeps rolling over unchanged, strained relationships between worker and employer, or a certificate that never moves. Early referral costs little, and the evidence consistently favours earlier intervention over waiting for a claim to stall. Redux Rehab accepts referrals from insurers, employers, treating practitioners and workers.
Redux Rehab accepts referrals from insurers, case managers, employers, treating practitioners and workers across NSW.