What is a Notifiable Incident? When do you have to tell WorkSafe ACT?
A ‘notifiable incident’ is an injury at work that is so serious that your employer, or whoever is in control in your workplace, is required by law to tell WorkSafe ACT as soon as they know about the incident. Notifiable injuries aren’t restricted to workers, it can include anyone injured on that worksite.
Workers or any individual can report their concerns to WorkSafe using the Report a Workplace Concern or Issue form. It can be anonymous.
Who has responsibility to report notifiable incidents?
The short answer is the ‘persons in control of a business or undertaking’ or a PCBU are responsible for reporting notifiable incidents to WorkSafe ACT. This responsibility includes creating a process within the organisation to report notifiable incidents. Officers of the PCBU make sure that the PCBU is complying with the responsibility to report notifiable incidents by following the reporting process set by the PCBU.
Persons in control of a business or undertaking are the individuals or the organisation that is responsible for engaging and managing working arrangements as a business or undertaking. An individual employer, or organisations such as government departments, not for profit organisations and unincorporated associations with employees can be PCBUs.
Officers of the PCBU are the people within an organisation who make or are involved in decisions that impacts a significant part of the business of the undertaking. This can be a supervisor. They must at least know and fulfil the procedures to ensure that a PCBU is fulfilling their safety obligations.
Workers are not PCBUs if they simply do work for an individual employer, business, or organisation. A PCBU must notify WorkSafe if you are injured or at risk of injury regardless of whether you are doing paid or unpaid work.
There is a clear process for how a PCBU notifies WorkSafe ACT about these injuries/risks of injury and what happens afterwards. Read on to see what these are.
What injuries constitute a notifiable incident?
- Someone dies in the workplace. If someone is seriously injured or made unwell because of workplace and later passes away, the employer is required to separately inform WorkSafe ACT as soon as they find out. This is called ‘Upgrading a Notification.’
- There is serious injury or illness that requires:
1. Hospitalisation, or
2. Immediate treatment for severe injuries such as a spinal injury or a serious burn, or
3. Someone has been exposed to a substance that needs medical treatment within 48 hours. - A business must report someone catching an infectious disease where the work was a significant contributory factor if someone was working with:
1. Micro-organisms or
2. Involvement in human care or medicine or
3. Exposure to human body substances or
4. Contact with animals, animal products or waste. - This WorkSafe ACT must be informed if a worker catches these diseases from their work with animals, with animal products like hides or wool, carcasses or animal waste:
1. Q fever;
2. Anthrax;
3. Leptospirosis;
4. Brucellosis;
5. Hendra Virus;
6. Avian Influenza; or
7. Psittacosis. - A dangerous incident. This includes anything that in the workplace that puts a worker or individual’s health or safety in danger from immediate or impending exposure to things like:
1. The complete or partial collapse of a building
2. Electric shock
3. An uncontrolled leak of a dangerous substance. - Dangerous occurrence. The PCBU must report to WorkSafe ACT if they believe there is a real chance of an incident occurring, in or outside the workplace, that causes a considerable risk of death or serious harm to a person, or damage to property or the environment. An example is a fire.
- Sexual assault of a worker or another person visiting the workplace. This includes when the employer suspects that a sexual assault has happened.
How do you notify WorkSafe ACT about notifiable injuries?
The PCBU can report all notifiable incidents, apart from sexual assault, through calling WorkSafe ACT on 13 22 81 or on the afterhours line 0419 120 028.
Within 48 hours of the initial contact with WorkSafe, the PCBU must provide a filled out Notification of Incident Form..
Remember, anyone can report all concerns or complaints about a workplace through filling out a Report a Workplace Concern or Issue form.
The completed form should be emailed to worksafe@worksafe.act.gov.au.
How do you notify WorkSafe about Sexual Assault?
The PCBU must use the Sexual Assault Notification Form to notify WorkSafe ACT about a sexual assault. The reason sexual assault is a different notification process is because the PCBU is limited about the amount of information, they can tell WorkSafe ACT about the incident.
The completed form should be emailed to worksafe@worksafe.act.gov.au.
If you are not the employer, WorkSafe ACT recommends that you tell ACT Policing on 131 444 or 000 if you are in an emergency.
What happens next?
The only times the area can be disturbed is:
- To help an injured person
- To take away the deceased person
- To make the site safe or reduce the risk of another incident happening.
- For a police investigation
- If the inspector has agreed to the disturbance by phone or in person.
The Inspector can issue a ‘non-disturbance notice’ at the work site to continue shutting it down to continue investigating. The notice should include information about how long the shut-down will be for.
Generally, if work has been stopped for a notifiable incident, workers should still get paid unless the employer cannot be reasonably found responsible for the incident occurring. This can depend on your enterprise bargaining agreement or industry Award.
A record of a notifiable incident must be kept by the PCBU for five years.
Resources:
Here’s a link to helpful poster about notifiable incidents created by WorkSafe ACT. Put it up in your workplace and start conversations with your co-workers about safety!
