Doctors and other health workers will need to prove they contracted COVID-19 on the job to claim workers’ compensation under proposed legal changes in NSW.

Until now, essential workers, including doctors and GP staff, have been presumed to have been infected while on duty when making a workers’ compensation claim for COVID-19.

But NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says the exemption, introduced last May, is no longer needed and proof of workplace infection should be required.

He said, if it remained, it would invite 25,000 extra claims in the next 12 months, which could increase employers’ insurance premiums by an average of $950.