How do I run SIRS reporting for incidents that happen in someone's home?

• Mandatory reporting of reportable incidents in the eight categories: unreasonable use of force; unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct; psychological or emotional abuse; unexpected death; stealing from, or financial coercion of, a care recipient by a staff member; neglect; inappropriate use of restrictive practices; and unexplained absence from care.
• Priority 1 reportable incidents include physical or psychological injury or discomfort requiring medical or psychological treatment, reasonable grounds for reporting to police, unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct, unexpected death and unexplained absence. Notify the Commission within 24 hours of provider awareness. Priority 2 incidents must be notified within 30 calendar days.
• Priority 2 incidents (all other reportable incidents) must be notified within 30 days.
• The 24-hour and 30-day clocks start when the provider becomes aware of the incident, not when the incident occurred.
• Incidents require documented investigation, participant safety actions, follow-up, and lessons-learned analysis for continuous improvement.
• SIRS extended to home services on 1 December 2022 and applies equally to home-care and residential providers. Since 1 November 2025 it continues under the Aged Care Act 2024 (s 164 — incident management, a condition of registration in Chapter 3, Part 4) and the Aged Care Rules 2025.

Reference: Aged Care Act 2024 s 164 (Incident management) and s 16 (Meaning of reportable incident), both within Chapter 3 (Registered providers and provider obligations); Aged Care Rules 2025 (SIRS detailed rules and categories); Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018; SIRS guidance and reportable-incident criteria published by the ACQSC. (Historical: SIRS extended to home services from 1 December 2022 under the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (SIRS) Principles 2021, which amended the Accountability Principles 2014 and the Quality of Care Principles 2014 under the now-repealed Aged Care Act 1997.)

• Carers don't know what counts as a reportable incident. The list of eight categories isn't internalised, so a bruise from a transfer gets logged but an unexplained absence doesn't.
• The clock starts before the report reaches the right person internally. A carer tells their team leader, the team leader waits until the next day to tell the Care Partner, and by the time the 24-hour clock is running, eight hours have already gone.
• No structured investigation. The incident gets notified to the ACQSC, but the root cause analysis is skipped, so the same type of incident recurs six weeks later.
• Missing Priority 2 incidents because they don't feel as urgent. The 30-day window passes, and what was a notifiable incident becomes a compliance breach.
• Investigation evidence captured on paper and never digitised, so when the ACQSC asks for a follow-up, the provider can't reconstruct the timeline.
• Failing to assess an unexplained absence against the reportable-incident definition. When it is a reportable unexplained absence, treat it as Priority 1 and follow the Commission’s current guidance.

• Capture an incident in the care worker app and record when the provider became aware. If entry happens later, preserve the earlier awareness time for the reporting deadline.
• Priority classification workflow — the incident enters a triage queue with the carer's initial capture, and the Care Partner or on-call clinical lead classifies it as Priority 1 or Priority 2 based on the ACQSC criteria. The clock for statutory notification is calculated from the awareness timestamp, not the classification timestamp.
• Countdown timers on every open incident — hours remaining to the P1 24-hour deadline or the P2 30-day deadline, visible on dashboards. The deadline workflow creates escalation tasks and attempts alerts to relevant roles as deadlines approach.
• Investigation workflow with prompts at each statutory milestone — immediate safety actions, participant and family notification, evidence capture, root cause analysis, lessons learned, and close-out with supervisor sign-off.
• ACQSC notification templates pre-populated from the incident record, ready for upload into the ACQSC's notification system. Direct API submission is on the roadmap.
• Trend analysis by incident category, participant, worker, and service type — the same incident recurring three times in a quarter triggers a systems-level review.

Use these records to structure your evidence review. In your demonstration, check their history, attribution and export options against your organisation's requirements:

• Incident timeline from capture through triage, classification, investigation, notification, and close-out — every state change timestamped and user-attributed.
• Classification history showing the initial priority assigned, any reclassification, and the reason for reclassification.
• ACQSC notification log — notification reference, submitted date, acknowledgement, and any follow-up correspondence.
• Investigation evidence including statements, observations, photographs where appropriate, and any supporting documentation.
• Root cause analysis findings and the improvement actions that flowed from them, linked to specific quality standards.
• Escalation trail showing who was notified internally, when, and what action they took.