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The Labour Department has appealed to employers, employees and relevant parties to join together to promote good practice in managing work injury claims to provide better rehabilitation services to injured employees so that they can return to work early. This will be beneficial to all parties in the long run.

Speaking at the seminar on "Work Injury Management" organised by the Labour Department today (April 23), the Permanent Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said that the main task of the Department in handling work injury cases was to ensure that injured employees receive reasonable compensation.

However, this might not be the sole concern of the injured worker who might want to receive appropriate treatment and to recover as soon as possible in order to return to work.

Organised work injury management can provide timely and appropriate assistance to injured employees and thus help them recover and resolve relevant injury claims promptly.

To this end, the Labour Department with the support of the Working Group on Construction Site Safety and Employees' Insurance of the Provisional Construction Industry Coordination Board, launched a trial "Return to Work Programme" for injured employees of the construction industry in March last year. The programme provides rehabilitation services to injured employees by insurance companies to help them recover and minimise permanent damage. This will also enable them to return to work as soon as possible.

Mr Cheung noted that the insurance industry, trade associations and unions of the construction industry, doctors from public hospitals and rehabilitation professionals were all supportive of the programme. The department completed an initial review and the eight participating insurance companies had already provided rehabilitation services for 155 injured employees.

"At the end of 2003, a total of $804.5 million has been paid as employees' compensation for cases that were reported in 2002 and have been processed by the department. The number of working days lost was more than 1.28 million. The average amount of compensation and working days lost for each case were $17,000 and 27 respectively.

"Therefore, these injury cases were not just traumas to employees and their families. They also cause significant loss to the economy and productivity," he said.

The Government is committed to improving occupational safety and health through legislation, education, promotion and law enforcement.

With the concerted efforts of all parties concerned, the number of occupational injury cases has declined continuously from 62,776 in 1997 to 42,022 last year, a decrease of 33.1%. The accident rate per 1,000 workers also went down 29% from 24.9 to 17.7. The number of industrial accidents has declined significantly from 43,305 in 1997 to 17,249 in 2003, a drop of 60.2%. The accident rate per 1,000 workers also decreased by 47.5% from 59.5 to 31.3.

The objective of today's seminar was to promote good practice in proactive management on work injury claims. It provided a forum for participants to learn from the experience of insurers and employers in claims management, particularly in the provision of rehabilitation services to injured employees.

The seminar was attended by nearly 200 employers, insurers underwriting employees' compensation insurance, medical and health professionals and trade unionists.

Ends/Friday, April 23, 2004

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