The National Serious Injury Service (NSIS) is a specialist nationwide unit within ACC that works with people who have had a serious injury.
What is a serious injury?
If your injury means that you have a significant (usually permanent) impairment or loss of function, ACC classifies your claim as a serious injury. Injuries must meet a set of clinical criteria to be considered ‘serious injury’, but in general consist of the following types of injury:
- moderate to severe traumatic brain injury
- spinal cord injury
- other catastrophic injury (eg multiple amputations, burns to over 50% of the body, etc).
Having your claim classified as serious injury means that you’ll be working with a National Serious Injury Service support coordinator.
How will ACC help me if I have a serious injury?
Your support coordinator will contact you and/or your family and work with you to assess your needs. He or she can provide a wide range of assistance to help you adjust to living with a serious injury. Your support coordinator will help you to set goals you want to achieve, such as living independently or returning to work, and assist in coordinating the support and services you’ll need to achieve those goals.
The NSIS has also developed a number of services specifically to support the re-integration of people with a serious injury back into their communities.
For general information about the types of assistance that may be available, see What support can I get?
Published: 20 June 2008