Travelling between worksites: NSW workers compensation guide

Travelling between worksites can occur through road collision while moving from one assigned site to another and fall or injury during a stop required for the next task. 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 moving between jobs and health, community and disability workers visiting clients. Employment records should identify each person's task, employer and position in the work area when the incident occurred.

Medical records after a travelling between worksites may identify road-crash injuries affecting the spine, limbs or head and manual-handling injury associated with equipment carried between sites. Each diagnosis should be linked to the event or exposure and to the worker's actual functional change.

For a travelling between worksites, the first evidence to preserve includes schedule, job allocation, client appointment and site attendance records and employer messages, route, GPS, toll and vehicle information. It is most useful when dates, people, equipment, duties and later medical histories tell a consistent account.

• Time records showing departure from one site and expected arrival at the next.
• Police, dashcam, witness and medical records.

After a travelling between worksites, an insurer may dispute the trip is characterised as commuting or an optional route and a stop between sites is said to be personal. The written decision should be answered with evidence directed to those stated reasons.

Treatment should identify both the travel mechanism and any work equipment involved. Rehabilitation should address future driving and site-access demands. If treatment is disputed after a travelling between worksites, the request should explain the accepted diagnosis, expected functional benefit and reasonable alternatives.

Work capacity after a travelling between worksites may turn on suitable work may need to limit driving distance, multiple site entries and carried equipment and regional travel and appointment pace should be tested against medical restrictions. 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 travelling between worksites 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 travelling between worksites, 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.