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Defining Serious Harm

A discussion paper on the revision of the definition of serious harm

Appendix 1: Definition of "serious harm" contained in the First Schedule of the Act

"Serious harm" means death, or harm of any of the kinds and descriptions listed below:

  1. Any of the following conditions that amounts to or results in permanent loss of bodily function, or temporary severe loss of bodily function: respiratory disease, noise-induced hearing loss, neurological disease, cancer, dermatological disease, communicable disease, musculoskeletal disease, illness caused by exposure to infected material, decompression sickness, poisoning, vision impairment, chemical or hot-metal burn of eye, penetrating wound of eye, bone fracture, laceration, crushing.
  2. Amputation of body part.
  3. Burns requiring referral to a specialist medical practitioner or specialist outpatient clinic.
  4. Loss of consciousness from lack of oxygen.
  5. Loss of consciousness, or acute illness requiring treatment by a medical practitioner, from absorption, inhalation, or ingestion, of any substance.
  6. Any harm that causes the person harmed to be hospitalised for a period of 48 hours or more commencing within 7 days of the harm's occurrence.

Appendix 2: Stakeholder organisations initially consulted in 2002

EMA (Northern)
NZCTU
SiteSafe NZ
Massey University
Business New Zealand
Federated Farmers NZ
Electricity Engineers' Association NZ
NZ Police Association
Transpower
Department of Labour (Occupational Physician)
Finsec
NZEPMU
NZ Chemical Industry Council
BHP NZ Steel
ACC
Air New Zealand
Injury Prevention Research Unit (Otago University)

Appendix 3: Input record format for prescribed manner of written notice to Department of Labour of serious harm

Sub-category: Employer details
  1. Business name
  2. Business address 1
  3. Business address 2
  4. Business address 3
  5. Postcode
  6. Relationship to injured person
  7. ACC number
  8. Industry of person completing
  9. Surname of person completing
  10. Other names of person completing
  11. Title of person completing
  12. Contact phone number
  13. Signature
  14. Date of completion
Sub-category: Injured person details
  1. Surname
  2. Other names
  3. Date of birth
  4. Sex
  5. Ethnicity
  6. Home address 1
  7. Home address 2
  8. Home address 3
  9. Postcode
  10. Contact phone number
  11. Occupation or job title of injured person (where applicable)
  12. Employment status of injured person (where applicable)
  13. Duration of employment of injured person (where applicable)
Sub-category: Cause/agency of harm details
  1. Location of place of work (text description)
  2. Time of accident /serious harm
  3. Date of accident/serious harm
  4. Shift
  5. Time at work before harm occurred
  6. Mechanism of accident/serious harm
  7. Agency of harm
  8. How the accident/harm happened (text description highlighting what the person was doing at the time of injury)
  9. Has a formal investigation been carried out?
  10. Was a significant hazard involved?
Sub-category: Injury/illness details
  1. Fatal or other serious harm
  2. Date of death (if applicable)
  3. Body part
  4. Nature of injury or disease
  5. Level of treatment given
Field formats

The field formats are as follows:

  • X - This represents any single alphabetic or numeric character. X followed by a number in brackets, (n), represents a string of 'n' characters. Note, 'n' will be the maximum length allowed for the field. Neither leading nor trailing spaces shall be present in the field.
  • 9 - This represents any single numeric character. '9' followed by a number in brackets, (n), represents a string of digits. Note, 'n' will be the maximum number of digits allowed for the field.
  • DDMMYYYY - This is an 8-digit date in DDMMYYYY format where DD is a 2-digit day number (including any leading zero), MM is a 2-digit month number (including any leading zero) and YYYY is a 4-digit year, eg 1st April 2007 would be shown as 01042007.
  • HHMM - This is a four-digit time in HHMM format where HH is a 2-digit hour (including any leading zero) and MM is a 2-digit number of minutes (including any leading zero). The time shall follow the 24-hour clock convention, e.g. 4.05am would be 0405, and 4.05pm would be 1605.

Sub Category Tables