Record where a hybrid-work injury happened before the log is deleted

What this is for

Hybrid work moved the place of work. Under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, subsection 4(1) defines place of work inclusively, as including any place at which the employee is required to attend for the purpose of carrying out the duties of his or her employment. Comcare's scheme guidance on home-based work, SRC336, adds the qualifier that decides most files: the home does not remain the employee's place of work 24 hours a day, rather the home is considered a place of work during the hours an employee is completing work-related activities.

That makes the initial enquiry a question about time and activity, not about an address. Section 5A(1) is tested first. Section 6 is reached only where no connection can be established under section 5A(1), and once section 6(1) is relied on, the disqualifier in subsection 6(3) becomes live.

The evidence that answers where and what is now systems evidence. Comcare's guidance names agreed work hours, patterns of work and IT access records among the relevant considerations, and lists work logs, emails and phone records where a workplace computer is supplied. Those records have retention settings, and on several major assistants the default is 30 days, against statutory determination periods of 20 calendar days for an injury claim and 60 for a disease claim.

Use this screen at intake on any claim where the injury did not happen at an employer-controlled site. It produces a dated record of the circumstance, a preserved evidence trail, and an explicit statement of what still requires a human finding.

How to use it

1. Complete field one before anything else touches an AI tool. It is a blocking field.
2. Complete field two the same day the injury is notified. Preservation is cheaper than reconstruction, and the retention clock does not wait for the claim.
3. Complete fields three to seven from source records, not from recollection, and record the source against each entry.
4. Complete field eight only after a person has read the circumstance. Do not let a model select the limb.
5. Complete fields nine and ten before the file leaves your desk. If field nine is empty, the screen has not been done properly.
6. Sign and date the screen. It records the circumstance; it does not determine the claim.

Where an AI tool assists, it may only tabulate what records show. The prompt below is the whole of the permitted instruction. Do not extend it.

The artefact

Governing rule, printed above the first field. A system log evidences presence and activity. It never evidences the characterisation. De-identify before any extract reaches a model, and hold the re-identification key separately.

1. De-identification check. Confirm [CLAIMANT_NAME], [CLAIM_NUMBER] and [DATE_OF_BIRTH] are replaced and the key is stored apart from the file. Signed by, date. Do not continue until signed.

2. Preservation. The hold instruction issued, the systems it covers, the person it went to, and the date issued.

3. Where. The location at the moment of injury as a place, not an address: the work area in the home, elsewhere in the dwelling, land outside the dwelling and which side of the title boundary, a client site, or a route between two places. Note that subsection 6(1A) starts a journey from a place of residence at the boundary of the land, and subsection 6(1B) treats contiguous parcels as one.

4. When. Date and clock time to the minute, the source of that time, and whether it is local time or system time.

5. What activity. What the employee says they were doing, in their own words, recorded before anyone maps it to a paragraph.

6. Arrangement in force. Formal working from home agreement, informal written or verbal agreement, or none. Name the document, its date and who holds it. Where there is no formal arrangement, record what was said and by whom.

7. Systems holding a record. One row per system, with these columns:

• System
• Record type, for example sign-in, network session, document version history, assistant activity history, agent run record
• Owner who can produce it
• Retention setting
• Date the retention window closes
• Preserved, yes or no

8. Limb under consideration. Section 5A(1) first. Only if no connection can be established there, record which of the following is in issue: paragraph 6(1)(b) at a place of work, paragraph 6(1)(b) temporarily absent during an ordinary recess, paragraph 6(1)(c) temporary absence undertaking an activity associated with the employment or at the employer's direction or request, paragraph 6(1)(d) travel at the employer's direction or request, or another paragraph. Record that subsection 6(3) becomes live once section 6(1) is relied on.

9. What the record does not establish. Name it explicitly: the characterisation of the activity, whether an absence was temporary, whether a break was an ordinary recess, whether a direction or request was given, and the employee's purpose.

10. Human finding still required. The delegate, the finding they must make, the evidence outstanding, and the date the file returns to them.

Completed by, date. Reviewed by, date.

The permitted AI instruction, used only to populate field seven:

Read the attached de-identified activity export for [CLAIM_NUMBER].

Return a table with one row per record and only these columns:
timestamp, system, record type, what the record shows, source identifier.

Do not characterise any activity as work, a break, a recess or personal.
Do not infer purpose, direction, intention or capacity.
Do not merge records, smooth gaps or reorder rows.
Where a period carries no record, write NO RECORD and keep the row.