Health Safety and Welfare Update September 2025

Minimum Medical Requirements Update 

As foreshadowed in July the Health and Safety team have worked with the Jumping and Dressage NDCs to develop a tiered proposal for Minimum Medical support required at EA Affiliated Events, consistent with the discipline undertaken and number of competitors at the event. 

State Organisations have implemented a Pilot of these Minimum Medical Requirement proposals to identify any practical amendments in consultation with Clubs and Organising Committees. 

The proposals have been well received, and some excellent and extensive feedback has been provided. We are now offering a structured survey for Clubs and Organising Committees to capture any additional information prior to developing a final implementation proposal.

The survey can be found at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FNZPP2N and closes early October.

Feedback and suggestions will be collated and the proposal enhanced accordingly with completion expected late October early November 2025.

Incident Reporting

We have noted an increase in compliance in Incident Reporting and utilisation of our Form08 system. We appreciate your efforts, Thank You.

Incident Reporting forms a key part of our Health, Safety and Welfare Management System. It allows us to capture data to Identify trends and measure specific areas. For example: -Number of serious incidents by discipline in competition 

When married with information from results this allows tracking of information by multiple factors to produce more detailed insights. 

Whilst Incident Reporting Compliance has increased relating to incidents in competition, we suspect we are missing data involving incidents at home or coaching related activities. 

We would appreciate your help in this area please to ensure we get the most complete picture possible- Form 08 is easily accessed from the EA homepage.

State Boards

The actions of Leadership play a key role in reinforcing a robust Safety Culture. 

Over the last 6 weeks, EA Health and Safety have engaged with each of the State and Territory Boards to present and discuss the Health Safety and Welfare Plans. As well as presenting we had the opportunity to learn from the local initiatives already underway and the insightful questions. It was a very valuable experience.

Helmet Standards

The FEI has mapped out a path to improved helmet standards to be implemented progressively over the next 2 years, beginning 1 January 2026 and concluding 1 January 2028.

The standards found HERE will replace the 'FEI List of the applicable international testing standards for Protective Headgear', which remains in effect until 31 December 2025. 

Developed in consultation with the FEI Helmet Working Group and other relevant experts, the new list aims to bring the FEI’s rules in closer alignment with the Group’s technical recommendations which can be found HERE.

EA follows the recommendations of the FEI on helmet standards and encourages members to review and understand the information in the FEI documents to make informed decisions regarding purchase and replacement of helmets.

Implementation of this path will require an update to our helmet tagging, with details to be communicated prior to 2026.

If you have any questions for our Health, Safety and Welfare team please contact us at [email protected]