Incident reporting in aged care is integral to protecting consumers from the risk of harm (including elder abuse). It also informs continuous improvement in providing safe and quality care.
Mandatory reporting obligations are set out by the Serious Incident Response Scheme (known as SIRS), under the Aged Care Act 1997 (Aged Care Act).
This course will focus on reporting obligations which apply to you as a staff member of your Organisation (as an approved provider of aged care).
Under the Aged Care Act, you are considered a staff member if you are employed directly by the Organisation, or if you are contracted through an agency (or otherwise hired or retained), to provide care and services.
Incident management systems
Obligations under SIRS require your organisation, as an approved provider of aged care (Organisation), to have an incident management system in place.
Incident management systems are outside the scope of this course, however it is important you understand how your Organisation’s incident management system operates, and your role and responsibilities in relation to it.
Elder abuse
This course is not intended to provide a full discussion of elder abuse generally. Another course entitled ‘Elder abuse’ goes into detail in relation identifying and responding to a range of different forms of abuse and neglect outside the SIRS framework.
Aged Care Quality Standards
This course is consistent with the aged care quality standards. It specifically relates to:
At the end of this module participants will be able to:
