Date recorded: Thursday 9 April 2020
Suitable for: All New Zealand Medical Protection members

Join Dr Tim Cookson, Medical Adviser, Medical Protection and Murray Grant, Special Counsel, Wotton + Kearney, for a one-hour recorded webinar focussed on the challenges to employment and workplace safety arising as a consequence of COVID-19.

During the recorded webinar, Murray Grant, will clarify the obligations of healthcare providers in the current COVID-19 environment and share practical steps that can be taken to address the challenges that are being faced daily.

A large proportion of our community is now in lockdown. While hospitals and medical practices remain open to provide services, the demand for these services and the way in which they are now provided has changed considerably. Healthcare providers are facing significant challenges and issues that include:

•    obligations where appropriate PPE is unavailable and workplace safety generally,
•    consequences for employees/contractors where there is insufficient work and determining what options are available, and
•    obligations generally owed to employees/contractors by employers and vice versa.

The Government has sought to alleviate some of the lockdown cash flow issues and to assist employers to retain staff during this unprecedented situation. Though, how the subsidies interact with employer rights and obligations can be confusing.

Webinar objectives

• Gain an understanding of the challenges to employment and workplace safety arising as a consequence of COVID-19 and receive practical advice about how to address these challenges.

Guest speaker

Murray Grant, Special Counsel at Wotton + Kearney, has considerable experience advising clients in the healthcare sector on legal and insurance issues, employment law, health and safety, and commercial litigation. He assists healthcare professionals indemnified by MPS with medicolegal and regulatory issues in New Zealand.

Murray has a wealth of knowledge about litigation strategies gained during his 12 years as a barrister in England and Wales, where he represented clients in employment tribunals, courts and in mediations.