The government also wants to address modern workplace injuries
The Victoria government on Friday unveiled its plans to better support injured workers in the state and help them quickly get back to work.
"We're transforming how complex claims are managed to make sure that Victorian workers injured on the job get the support they need to get well and get back to work," announced Workplace Safety Minister Ingrid Stitt.
Among the plans announced include the expansion of WorkSafe's newly established Claims and Recovery Support Team to focus on dedicated and specialised interventions for more complex claims.
The government has set a year-end deadline for WorkSafe to transfer about 2,000 WorkCover claims from long-term injured workers with complex needs from agents and take on direct responsibility for their management.
"These are workers who still need to receive weekly payments 130 weeks after first making a claim and whose employers have ceased to operate," according to the government's announcement.
The change is in line with the recommendations from an independent review of the Victorian workers' compensation scheme's management of complex WorkCover claims. The review, conducted by Peter Rozen QC, said that the "outsourced agent model is unsuitable when it comes to dealing with certain complex claims."
Meanwhile, the government said it will also amend the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013.
The planned amendment to the law seeks to require WorkSafe to develop and publish a Code of Injured Workers' Rights, which will outline the rights of workers, the responsibilities of WorkSafe, as well as the enforcement of the said rights.
The changes seek to "transform the scheme" to address modern workplace injuries, according to the government, particularly mental injuries.
The government pointed out in its announcement that such injuries are more difficult to identify, more costly, and take longer to recover than many physical injuries.
It added that by improving workers' experience with the compensation scheme, it will prevent further injury, particularly mental injury that are developed when workers are unable to recover quickly and return to work.
Read more: Victoria's sick leave scheme: How will it impact employers?
Review on Victorian Workers' Compensation System
The independent review of Peter Rozen QC on the Victorian workers' compensation scheme provided 22 recommendations to the government to consider.
In announcement, the government said that it has considered the 22 recommendations and made the following decisions on them:
- five recommendations have been accepted
- fourteen recommendations were accepted in principle
- two recommendations require "further consideration"
- one recommendation was noted
