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Ministry of Education New Zealand

HS34 Incident notification to the Ministry of Education

Criteria

Where there is a serious injury or illness or incident involving a child while at the service that is required to be notified to a specified agency, the service provider must also notify the Ministry of Education at the same time.

Documentation required

A copy of the notification sent to the specified agency.

Guidance

A specified agency is any government agency or statutory body that a service provider is required to notify if there is a serious (or as defined) injury, illness, incident or allegation.

This may include but is not limited to:

The Ministry and WorkSafe have produced a flowchart to show what you need to do when there is a notifiable event at your service.

pdf thumbnailInjury and incident procedure flowchart
DownloadPDF76KB

Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) requires you to notify WorkSafe of fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses that happen to workers and others as a result of work. WorkSafe has detailed information about making a notification. For early learning services, 'others' includes children, parents and visitors.

Notify WorkSafe – WorkSafe

Make a notification of a child's serious injury or illness if it:

  • is a serious injury or illness which occurred as a result of work activity and
  • needs immediate admission to hospital or
  • needs treatment by a doctor within 48 hours of exposure to a substance.

Examples of an injury or illness occurring as a result of a work activity include, but aren't limited to, a child:

  • falling from a height during a nappy change
  • ingesting a cleaning product that wasn't stored securely
  • sustaining a serious injury from play equipment.

Documentation guidance

A copy of the notification sent to the specified agency is required to be sent to the Ministry of Education.