New Notifiable Incident Requirements

New notifiable incident requirements that particularly deal with psychosocial incidents have been added to the model WHS Act and Regulations for the harmonised states. It is now up to each harmonised state and territory (ie excludes Vic and WA) to ‘update’ their own WHS Act and Regulations so stay tuned for the operative dates in your areas of operation.

This means that the list of incident types that must be reported to the Regulator now also include:

1. violent incidents that expose a person to a serious risk of psychological harm (noting that sexual assaults should not provide identifying information about the victim),

2. work-related (or suspected work-related) suicide or attempted suicide (including non-workers),

3. absent from work for 15 or more consecutive days for both physical and psychological work related injury or illness (and includes anticipated absences based on a medical practitioner’s opinion);

4. blows to the head, or similar head-related events; plus

5. the following types of dangerous incidents: electrical explosions, arc flash explosions; mobile plant incidents; and a serious fall of a person;

Our Take

These changes were promised for a long time and make complete sense when considering the significant impacts that psychosocial hazards play on individuals, workplaces and whole systems like workers compensation. Government had little option but to back up their ‘tough talk’ by equally updating the legislation to deal with psychosocial hazards in this area of reporting - which up till this point had been conspicuously ‘absent’.

Action Items

• Keep a watching brief to see when the changes become operative in your particular workplace(s)

• Get your policies and procedures ready (in draft) to deal with the latest changes when operative

• Update your record keeping procedures to ensure that your workplace can properly store these records for at least 5 years

• Train your staff in preparation for the upcoming changes

• For more information on the notification changes see handy materials provided by Safe Work Australia: the

  
  

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