ACC Injury Prevention Report: Accident Compensation in New Zealand

This report examines the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) in New Zealand, focusing on its role in injury prevention and financial support for individuals who have suffered injuries. It begins by outlining the primary aim of the ACC, established by the New Zealand government through the Accident Compensation Act 2001, which is to prevent injuries and provide comprehensive rehabilitation and financial assistance to those affected. The report uses the case of Dr. James, who sustained a wrist injury, to illustrate the process of claiming compensation, including the required medical certification and the steps involved in receiving weekly compensation. The report references key legislation and scholarly articles to support its analysis, providing a clear understanding of the ACC's operations, the types of injuries covered, and the entitlements available to injured individuals, emphasizing the importance of timely reporting and medical documentation to facilitate the compensation process. The report is based on the assignment brief provided for ACC and its coverage of personal injury caused by accident.

Running head: INJURY PREVENTION
INJURY PREVENTION IS NEW ZEALAND
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1INJURY PREVENTION
The primary aim of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, developed by the New
Zealand government is to prevent injuries and if someone is injured, then provide them with
complete rehabilitation so that they could overcome their critical condition and do not suffer any
financial complication (ACC, 2019). The government has set up a complete pathway that could
be followed for the application of such claim in workplaces. This paper discusses about one such
injury of Dr. James, who is unable to join his work because of a wrist injury.
As per Prang, Hassani-Mahmooei and Collie (2016), if any person has suffered from any
injury, they are liable to get their 80% salary prior to their date of injury and for this purpose, the
person has to submit a medical certificate to his or her workplace so that the financial
complications could be avoided while recovering from the critical condition. Further, for medical
certificate, the doctor approached for medical assistance would be providing the workplace of the
patient with information about the injury (Elbers et al., 2016). Whereas, if the patient contact the
authority on his own and inform his/her employer, then the decision of the board and the
organisation would be shared to the patient (ACC, 2019).
This is the similar step or process that would be followed by Dr. James who met an
accident enrooting his work and suffered from a wrist injury. Therefore, this would be the
process using which Dr, James would be able to apply for the accident compensation.

2INJURY PREVENTION
References
ACC. (2019). Getting paid if you can't work. Retrieved 17 August 2019, from
https://www.acc.co.nz/im-injured/financial-support/weekly-compensation/
Elbers, N. A., Collie, A., Hogg-Johnson, S., Lippel, K., Lockwood, K., & Cameron, I. D. (2016).
Differences in perceived fairness and health outcomes in two injury compensation
systems: a comparative study. BMC public health, 16(1), 658.
Prang, K. H., Hassani-Mahmooei, B., & Collie, A. (2016). Compensation Research Database:
population-based injury data for surveillance, linkage and mining. BMC research
notes, 9(1), 456.