Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) in Home Care
Written by Lilly Sorensen, Sector Support Administrator
Your Side Sector Support’s quarterly CEO Roundtable brought together in-home aged care CEOs to discuss insights and learnings around the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS). In addition to CEOs, this briefing is valuable for directors, exec team, clinical managers, quality and safety managers, and anyone involved in incident management and quality improvement in the home-care setting. Cynthia Payne, Founder and Managing Director of Anchor Excellence guided a discussion on the intricacies of SIRS, including Incident Management Systems (IMS), the workflows within an IMS, SIRS and its link to elder abuse, and why a best-practice IMS must go beyond the SIRS minimum requirements.
To learn more about the 8 types of reportable incidents and an overview of the SIRS scheme, links have been provided below.
Strengthening Your Incident Management System
The SIRS includes requirements relating to implementing and maintaining an IMS, including:
- establishing procedures for identifying, managing and resolving incidents
- documenting and record keeping in relation to incidents
- supporting staff to use and comply with the IMS
Incident management and prevention responsibilities apply to all incidents.
Provider Questions:
- The Draft New Aged Care Act obliges an effective IMS. What evidence do you have to show your IMS is effective? How do you know if all incidents are recorded and acted upon?
- How does your IMS and complaints management system link together?
Low-Risk Service Categories are Not Immune
Reportable incidents are not limited to high-risk or clinical services, any type of service may encounter events that are reportable under SIRS. Stealing or financial abuse by a worker can occur during any type of service. By looking toward the future, where the home-care client mix has higher care needs, home care providers can proactively review their policies, IMS and SIRS systems.
Consumer Health Literacy
A rights-based system assumes a level of health literacy of the older person. Health literacy is key to effectively exercise choice and control, and to ensure the older person identifies and reports potential SIRS incidents.
Provider Questions:
- How are your clients empowered to communicate any concerns, and can your organisation communicate information about your complaints process more effectively?
- How can you direct consumers to existing information sources, including advocacy information?
- Do you offer simple guides on what type of incidents you would like your clients to report to you?
IMS and Trend Data
Beyond the minimum requirements, a robust IMS system should also capture ‘near miss’ data. Near miss data can pick up trends of an older person’s increased risk, and might identify an increased care need that might not necessarily be identified by an individual worker. Data insights can also be gleaned for specific service types.
Provider Questions:
- Is your IMS capturing the right data, is training appropriate?
- How does your IMS capture and report data? What detail is not currently being collected, that could prove valuable?
- How does your organisation utilise macro-level data in continuous improvement and prevention?
SIRS reportable incident, or Elder abuse?
Even if an incident is not deemed reportable under the SIRS scheme, your IMS should also capture incidents that fall under Code of Conduct, elder abuse, Australian Human Rights Commission, or other legislation or regulatory body.
Provider Questions:
- How does your incident reporting system categorise other types of incidents such as elder abuse?
- Does your organisation have elder abuse processes in place?
- Do you have a Root Cause Analysis process in place, and is it built into your IMS?
Open Disclosure
Open disclosure refers to the practice of communicating with a consumer when things go wrong, addressing any immediate needs or concerns and providing support, apologising, and explaining the steps the provider has taken to prevent it happening again. Open disclosure demonstrates a collaborative partnership with older people at the centre of planning, delivery and evaluating care.
Provider Questions:
- How does your organisation promote a culture of learning and quality improvement in the context of open disclosure?
- How do your systems and policies support consumers to effectively engage with open disclosure?
- Is your IMS collecting the right information to identify when an incident requires open disclosure?
Benchmarking your Organisation
The Commission offers useful reports, including sector performance reports and benchmarking data. These valuable resources can support your governance team to ask better questions about the data being collected and reported, and the processes involved. Read the latest Sector Performance Report (Q3 January to March 2024) here.
Further Reading:
SIRS guidelines for providers of home services
Resources on SIRS – For Providers