Client or customer site accident: NSW workers compensation guide

Client or customer site accident can occur through fall on stairs, paths, floors or temporary access and manual task using customer equipment or confined space. The incident history should identify the task, equipment, location and sequence of events rather than relying on the job title alone.

People commonly exposed include tradespeople, technicians and sales workers and health, community, cleaning and support workers. Employment records should identify each person's task, employer and position in the work area when the incident occurred.

Medical records after a client or customer site accident may identify back, shoulder, knee, ankle and fracture injury and head or hand injury at an unfamiliar site. Each diagnosis should be linked to the event or exposure and to the worker's actual functional change.

For a client or customer site accident, the first evidence to preserve includes booking, work order, address and employer instruction and client induction, access notes, site photographs and CCTV request. It is most useful when dates, people, equipment, duties and later medical histories tell a consistent account.

• Hazard report, witness, supervisor and customer communications.
• Medical record identifying the off-site task and mechanism.

After a client or customer site accident, an insurer may dispute the employer says the premises were outside its control and the client and employer give different accounts of access or task. The written decision should be answered with evidence directed to those stated reasons.

Medical records should identify the site and precise work task. Rehabilitation should address unfamiliar premises, travel and any public interaction. If treatment is disputed after a client or customer site accident, the request should explain the accepted diagnosis, expected functional benefit and reasonable alternatives.

Work capacity after a client or customer site accident may turn on home or client visits may require stairs, walking, lifting and lone work and office-based duties do not necessarily establish capacity for field attendance. Proposed duties must be compared with the real task demands and the worker's ability to sustain them for the proposed hours.

WPI is assessed from stable, accepted medical impairment under the applicable NSW method; travel, collision, surgery or imaging does not create an automatic percentage. Each diagnosed body system must be assessed using its own clinical findings, and any pre-existing impairment issue must be addressed separately. Any WPI assessment after a client or customer site accident occurs after stabilisation under the NSW method for the accepted body system; the accident or surgery alone does not determine a percentage.

A NSW road crash may also require a separate CTP claim or advice, depending on the vehicle, road and circumstances. Another business controlling a client site, vehicle, venue or premises may raise a separate recovery issue that needs individual advice. These issues are separate from workers compensation and depend on the particular facts.

For a client or customer site accident, assistance may involve identify whether the facts concern work-duty travel, a section 10 journey, a section 11 recess or another course-of-employment question and preserve route, employer, vehicle, event and medical records before app or camera data is overwritten. The purpose is to identify the disputed decision and the evidence needed for the next step, not to promise an outcome.