SIRS Reporting for Aged Care: 24-Hour Rules + Decision Tool

Getting a Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) classification wrong — treating a Priority 1 incident as Priority 2, or missing the reporting window entirely — is one of the most common and most consequential compliance failures in aged care. This guide covers what SIRS requires, the exact classification logic as a step-by-step decision tree, and how it interacts with NDIS reporting for providers who deliver both.

What is SIRS, and who does it apply to?

The Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) is administered by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC). It requires approved aged care providers to have a system in place to identify, record, manage, and report serious incidents involving people receiving Commonwealth-funded aged care.

SIRS applies to:

• Residential aged care providers
• Home care providers (in-home and community-based aged care services)

If you’re an approved provider delivering either service type, you’re required to have a SIRS-compliant incident management system — not just a reactive process for when something goes wrong, but an ongoing system for identifying and preventing incidents before they escalate.

Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — Serious Incident Response Scheme

The 8 reportable incident types

SIRS defines eight categories of reportable incidents. Every incident your organisation identifies needs to be checked against this list first, before you move to priority classification.

1. Unreasonable use of force
2. Unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct
3. Psychological or emotional abuse
4. Unexpected death
5. Stealing or financial coercion by a staff member
6. Neglect
7. Inappropriate use of restrictive practices, or use of a restrictive practice without meeting relevant requirements
8. Unexplained absence from care (a consumer who is unexpectedly missing during the delivery of care)

If an incident doesn’t fall into one of these eight categories, it’s not a SIRS-reportable incident — though it may still warrant internal recording and review as part of good incident management practice.

Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — About reportable incidents

Priority 1 vs Priority 2: definitions and clocks

Once you’ve confirmed an incident falls into one of the eight categories above, the next step is priority classification — because the classification determines your reporting deadline.

Priority 1

Definition: A reportable incident that caused, or could reasonably have been expected to cause, a consumer physical or psychological injury or discomfort that requires medical or psychological treatment to resolve — or an incident involving unlawful sexual contact, an unexpected death, an unexplained absence, or where there are reasonable grounds to report the incident to police.

Deadline: report to the Commission within 24 hours of the provider becoming aware of the incident.

Priority 2

Definition: Any reportable incident (one of the eight categories above) that does not meet the Priority 1 criteria.

Deadline: report to the Commission within 30 days of the provider becoming aware of the incident.

The critical phrase in both definitions is “becoming aware” — the clock starts when your organisation knew or reasonably should have known about the incident, which is not always the same moment the incident occurred. A delayed discovery doesn’t reset or extend your deadline once you are aware.

Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — About reportable incidents

SIRS decision flow {#decision-flow}

The classification logic below is written as a sequential flow — the same logic the interactive tool above uses. Work through it in order; as soon as one of steps 3–7 is “yes”, you can stop, because the incident is Priority 1.

1. Is a person receiving Commonwealth-funded aged care involved? Did an incident occur — or is there an allegation of one — involving a person receiving Commonwealth-funded aged care (residential or home care)? If no, it is not a SIRS matter (consider other obligations such as WHS or your complaints process). If yes, continue.

2. Does it fall into one of the 8 reportable categories? Check the incident against the eight reportable incident types (unreasonable use of force; unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct; psychological or emotional abuse; unexpected death; stealing or financial coercion by a staff member; neglect; inappropriate use of restrictive practices; unexplained absence from care). More than one category can apply — record all that do. If none apply, it is not SIRS-reportable: record it internally per your incident management system and review whether it points to a broader risk pattern. If at least one applies, continue.

3. Injury or discomfort requiring treatment? Did the incident cause — or could it reasonably have been expected to cause — physical or psychological injury or discomfort that requires medical or psychological treatment to resolve? If yes → Priority 1 (report within 24 hours of becoming aware). If no, continue.

4. Unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct? If yes → Priority 1 (24 hours). If no, continue.

5. Unexpected death? If yes → Priority 1 (24 hours). If no, continue.

6. Unexplained absence from care? (The consumer is unexpectedly missing during the delivery of care.) If yes → Priority 1 (24 hours). If no, continue.

7. Reasonable grounds to report to police? (For example, suspected criminal conduct.) If yes → Priority 1 (24 hours). If no → Priority 2 (report within 30 days of becoming aware).

A few things to keep straight when you apply this:

• Steps 3–7 each independently trigger Priority 1 — you do not need all of them to be true. The flow short-circuits: the first “yes” among them settles the priority as Priority 1.
• Step 2 is effectively multi-select — carry every applicable category forward into the report, even though only one priority outcome applies.
• The countdown starts when your organisation became aware of the incident, not when the incident occurred — the two are often different, and “became aware” is the legally operative moment for the deadline. The interactive tool lets you set that exact time so the deadline it shows is real.

Prefer to have the deadline calculated for you? Use the interactive SIRS decision tool — it runs through these same steps and returns your exact reporting deadline as a date and time.

Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — About reportable incidents; decision flow structure derived from Priority 1/Priority 2 definitions published by ACQSC

What to include in a SIRS report

Whether you’re reporting to the Commission online or preparing your internal record before submission, a complete SIRS report should cover:

• Consumer details — name, identifying information relevant to their care
• Incident category — which of the 8 reportable types applies (may be more than one)
• Priority classification — Priority 1 or Priority 2, with the specific criterion that determined it
• Date and time of the incident, and separately, date and time the provider became aware (these drive the deadline clock and are often different)
• Description of what happened — factual and objective
• Immediate actions taken — first aid, medical attention, safeguarding steps, family/representative notification
• Whether police were notified, and if so, when and by whom
• Corrective and preventative actions — what will change so this doesn’t recur
• Sign-off — who prepared, reviewed, and approved the report before submission

A report that stops at “what happened” without corrective action is incomplete in the eyes of the Commission — SIRS exists to drive systemic improvement, not just create a record of harm.

How SIRS interacts with NDIS reporting for dual providers

Some organisations deliver both Commonwealth-funded aged care and NDIS-funded disability supports — for example, a home care provider that also supports younger people with disability, or an organisation operating across both sectors. For these dual providers, a single incident can trigger obligations to two separate regulators with two separate classification systems and timeframes.

Key differences to keep straight:

	SIRS (Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission)	NDIS reportable incidents (NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission)
Categories	8 defined types	Death, serious injury, abuse/neglect, unlawful sexual/physical contact, sexual misconduct, restrictive practice breaches (2 sub-types)
Fastest deadline	24 hours (Priority 1)	24 hours (most categories)
Slower deadline	30 days (Priority 2)	5 business days (restrictive practice, unless harm caused — then 24 hours)
Legal basis	Aged Care Act / SIRS framework	NDIS Act, section 73Y

A dual provider needs to run both classification processes for a relevant incident — determining SIRS priority does not automatically determine NDIS reportable status, and vice versa. The safest operational approach is to build a single intake process that immediately checks an incident against both frameworks, rather than assuming one classification implies the other. See our free NDIS incident report template for the equivalent NDIS-side reference table and reporting form.

Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission; NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission — Reportable incidents

Penalties and consequences for late reporting

Failing to report a SIRS-reportable incident within the required timeframe is a compliance failure under your obligations as an approved aged care provider. Consequences can include regulatory action against your approval status, directly affecting your ability to continue operating and receive Commonwealth funding. Beyond the direct compliance consequence, late or missing SIRS reports also undermine the broader purpose of the scheme — identifying patterns of harm early enough to prevent recurrence — which is precisely the outcome regulators, families, and providers themselves have the strongest shared interest in avoiding.

Given the reputational and regulatory weight attached to SIRS compliance, getting the Priority 1 vs Priority 2 classification right the first time — rather than reclassifying after the fact — matters more in aged care than in almost any other compliance domain covered on this site.

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Sources

• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — The Serious Incident Response Scheme
• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — About reportable incidents
• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — Reportable incidents
• NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission — Reportable incidents

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This guide provides general information about SIRS obligations for approved aged care providers and does not constitute legal advice. Confirm current reportable incident categories, priority definitions, and timeframes directly with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, as requirements can be updated.