The State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) has updated its NSW Workers Compensation Regulation as of this month.
The 2016 Regulation will aim to reflect legislative changes in a bid to create better outcomes for both businesses and their employees.
SIRA chief executive Anthony Lean detailed which elements of the Regulation have been rebooted since 2010.
“Due to the automatic staged repeal of the 2010 Regulation on 1 September, the Regulation was remade with amendments.
“Changes include updating prescribed medical tests and results relating to brucellosis, Q fever, and leptospirosis to reflect the latest definitions from the NSW Control Guidelines for Public Health Units.
“Other changes include alignment with reforms to workers compensation and legal profession legislation since 2010, and removal of unnecessary clauses.
“Updated references to other legislative instruments and clarification of the wording of clauses where there was unclear interpretation have also been included.”
Lean also clarified further changes made during this year's reboot.
“Due to their substantive and specialised nature, amendments to the Market Practice and Premiums Guidelines and Return to Work Assistance benefits were progressed concurrently with, but separate to, the remake of the 2010 Regulation.
“Work also continues on issues related to pre-injury average weekly earnings and legal costs for work capacity decisions. Any enhancements to the 2016 Regulation concerning these issues will be announced in the future.”
According to Lean, changes have been made based on public consultation.
“Public consultation on the draft Regulation was conducted from May – June 2016 and stakeholder submissions were considered in the development of the new regulation.
“A number of key issues were highlighted in relation to worker access to reports obtained by insurers and work-related diseases. While these issues were outside the scope of this remake, the feedback identified opportunities for better regulation for injured workers in the future.
“SIRA has listened to that feedback and will respond with some additional projects to deliver better regulation for NSW.”