According to The Department of Health, the new Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) commenced 1 April 2021. In last week’s article we provided a summary of the SIRS for residential aged care providers. Today we dig a little deeper and answer some key questions about the SIRS.
The SIRS is a national framework for incident management and reporting of serious incidents in residential aged care. It imposes obligations on aged care providers to manage and report on incidents, and expands the powers of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC).
The SIRS imposes two main requirements on residential aged care providers/services:
Most of the SIRS requirements commenced 1 April 2021. The requirement to report “Priority 2” incidents commences 1 October 2021.
The obligation to report applies to all “approved providers”. That term is not clearly defined. At this stage you should take a broad view and assume that reporting responsibility applies to your governing body/board and leadership and management team.
All “approved providers” also have a responsibility to ensure that any staff member who becomes aware of a reportable incident notifies senior staff “as soon as possible.”
Priority 1 incidents must be reported to the ACQSC within 24 hours of becoming aware of the incident. A “Priority 1 incident” occurs where the incident has caused, or could reasonably have caused, a care recipient physical or psychological injury or discomfort that requires medical or psychological treatment to resolve. Unexplained absence from care and unexpected death are always to be regarded as Priority 1 incidents.
Priority 2 incidents must be reported to the ACQSC within 30 days of becoming aware of the incident. This includes all other reportable incidents that do not meet the criteria for a Priority 1 incident. This obligation applies from 1 October 2021.
If there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the incident should be reported to the police, it must be reported within 24 hours of becoming aware of the incident. Note: reporting to the police is an additional obligation. You still have to report to the ACQSC even if you report to police.
Reports to the ACQSC are made via the My Aged Care Provider Portal.
Reports to police are made by calling triple-zero (000) in an emergency or otherwise by phoning your local police station.
Yes.
However, you can apply for an exemption. According to page 46 of the SIRS Guidelines for Residential Aged Care Providers:
“If the reportable incident relates to a particular consumer who has been diagnosed with dementia and experiences delusions, and continues to report a particular event which has been investigated and is based on delusions, you may apply to the Commission for a determination that further repeat allegations of the same reportable incident do not need to be notified.”
But note, you must report the first incident, and if the same person is involved in a new incident the exemption does not apply and you must report the new incident.
Yes. The SIRS require you to report all reportable incidents that occur “in connection with” the provision of care. For example, if the incident occurs while staff are taking residents off site for an appointment it must be reported.
Aged care providers must report a Priority 1 incident within 24 hours of “becoming aware” of the incident. At exactly what point does someone “become aware” of an incident?
As noted above, the reporting obligations apply to “aged care providers” not to general staff, so our best guess is that the clock starts ticking as soon as an “aged care provider” (i.e. a member of the management or leadership team) becomes aware of the incident. For example, if a staff member witnesses a resident being bullied at 1.45pm and reports this to their manager at 2.15pm, then the clock starts at 2.15pm and the incident must be reported by 2.15pm the following day.
The ACQSC has some specific powers it can use in response to a particular report and some general powers to gather and use data from a collection of reports.
When the ACQSC receives a notification of a reportable incident, it can:
The ACQSC also has the following powers of enforcement:
The ACQSC will use the incident reports it receives to:
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety made several recommendations about the SIRS. Some of these have been partially implemented already, the remainder will have no effect on the SIRS until the government makes laws in response to the Royal Commission’s report. However, it’s good to be aware of what the Royal Commission recommended, as this is likely to affect the SIRS in the future.
Key Royal Commission recommendations include:
Nominate a specific person as being chiefly responsible for reporting. This person should work with a team of responsible reporters so that for all seven days of the week someone is available and qualified to make a report. You should ensure that all these people have access to the My Aged Care Portal.
Mark Bryan
Mark is a Legal Research Consultant at CompliSpace and the editor for ACE. Mark has worked as a Legal Policy Officer for the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department and the NSW Department of Justice. He also spent three years as lead editor for the private sessions narratives team at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in Arts/Law from the Australian National University with First Class Honours in Law, a Graduate Diploma in Writing from UTS and a Graduate Certificate in Film Directing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Jenny Wang
Jenny is the Content Integration Team Leader at CompliSpace and a legal research assistant for the aged care team. She has a Bachelor of Science (Financial Mathematics and Statistics) and is currently completing her Bachelor of Laws at the University of Sydney.