Edition No.6

Response to current COVID-19 health restrictions

The Commission is closely monitoring the evolving community outbreak in NSW and in response to the Public Health Order issued on Friday 25^th June 2021, we intend approaching this challenge in the following manner.

Medical Assessments

Medical assessments currently scheduled to take place in Sydney between Monday 28 June – Friday 2 July will either be rescheduled or proceed via videoconference. Our aim is to keep this COVID-created backlog as contained as possible while complying with the full letter of the Public Health Order.

Next week’s medical assessments will be managed in the following way:

• Assessments scheduled for the Sydney metropolitan region will be moved to videoconference where agreed to by the parties and assessors or alternatively be rescheduled for the next available time.
• Assessments where BOTH the injured party AND the Medical assessor are located in a regional or rural area and have not been in the greater Sydney area since 11 June 2021, may proceed as arranged.
• The Commission team will be in touch with all impacted parties to manage the appointments on a case-by-case basis.

Medical appointments currently scheduled for the week commencing 5 July 2021and ongoing (after the stay-at-home orders conclude) will proceed at this stage. We may need to revisit this based on any Public Health Orders announced next week.

Hearings

In terms of hearings, the current arrangements detailed in Procedural Direction PIC10 – Hearings during COVID-19, remain in place. Given that our practices for virtual hearings and mediations are well established, we are strongly positioned to continue our operations without interruption.

Commission Office

Please note that the Commission’s office at 1 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst will be closed Monday 28 June to Friday 2 July, with all staff working remotely and our reception unmanned. Any parties who require assistance should contact their case manager via the appropriate channels or call 1800 PIC NSW.

The former Dispute Resolution Services and Workers Compensation Commission successfully responded to pandemic restrictions during 2020 and based on that experience and our learnings I am confident that the Commission can continue to provide our services to the injured people of NSW who require our assistance.

It is clear that COVID-19 is not finished with our community yet, however you can have confidence that the Commission has the ability to deal with this situation.

Hopefully this latest Public Health Order will not greatly affect our efforts to address the 2020 pandemic backlog. This will depend on how this latest COVID-19 event proceeds.