Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency recognises that many of the participants/families using Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency services are at risk of incidents and accidents. Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency’s Reportable Incident, Accident and Emergency Policy and Procedure seeks to:
- Minimise risk and prevent future incidents through the development of appropriate family-centred plans, educator training, assessment and review
- Ensure that there is immediate management of an incident, accident or emergency and that each of these events are prioritised, managed and investigated appropriately
- Identify opportunities to improve the quality of participant/family supports by ensuring that the incident system is planned and coordinated and is linked to the quality and risk management systems
All providers are responsible for the delivery of quality and safe supports and services.
We are required to record and manage all incidents that happen during the delivery of supports and services and notify peak bodies of serious incidents.
We must notify peak bodies of all serious incidents (including allegations).
For an incident to be serious (Formal) a certain act or event needs to have happened (or alleged to have happened) in connection with the provision of supports or services.
Serious incidents include:
- The death of a person
- Serious injury of a person
- Abuse or neglect of a person
- Unlawful sexual or physical contact with, or assault of, a person (excluding, in the case of unlawful physical assault, contact with, and impact on, the person that is negligible)
- Sexual misconduct, committed against, or in the presence of, a person, including grooming of the person for sexual activity
- Unauthorised use of a restrictive practice in relation to a person, other than where the use is in accordance with an authorisation (however described) of a state or territory in relation to the person or a behaviour support plan for the person
Serious Incident Management Procedure:
- Worker/educator/participant/family/advocate informs and records data
- The Agency investigates
- Contact is made to the In Home Care Team within 24 business hours of receipt of complaint
- Support the Educator and Family
- Analyse the incident
- Incident minimisation and correction actions
- Inform Educator and Family of investigation
- Continuous improvement process
We are required to record and manage all incidents that happen during the delivery of supports and services and notify peak bodies if required.
Minor incidents include:
- Mild injury of a person
- Home safety issue
- Damage to an item
- Alarming behaviour which could result in the harm of a person
- Concerning circumstance that could be rectified with support
Minor Incident Management Procedure:
- Worker/educator/participant/family/advocate informs and records data
- The Agency investigates
- Support the participant/family
- Analyse the incident
- Incident minimisation and correction actions
- Inform participant/family of investigation
- Continuous improvement process
Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will establish a procedure that identifies, manages and resolves incidents, as follows:
Step 1. Inform of incident
- Educator to report the incident to the Agency.
- Educator completes an Incident Report that identifies and records details relating to the incident, i.e. people, place, time and date.
Step 2. Investigation
- The Agency will determine, from the information provided, if the incident is classified as a reportable incident by the In Home Care Team or a different type of incident:
- A reportable incident must comply with the reportable incident reporting process.
- Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will comply with the In Home Care National Guidelines.
- A general incident is an accident with non-reportable injuries.
- The Agency will review details of the incident:
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- People involved.
- Location.
- Circumstances.
- Outcome, e.g. injury.
- The Agency will investigate the incident/accident in accordance with the process outlined in the Incident Investigation Form to determine required information:
- Immediate reasons for the event.
- Underlying reasons for the event.
- Immediate actions required to fix the cause of the event.
- Preventative actions required for the future.
- Any information learned from incidents/accidents will be incorporated into our continuous improvement cycle to enable prevention of the same incident/accident recurring in the future.
- The analysis and investigation of each incident will vary based on the seriousness of the incident.
Step 3. Support participant/family
- The Agency ensures that the affected participant/family is supported and assisted:
- Informing them that they have access to an advocate, if the participant/family does not have an advocate the Agency can assist in accessing an independent advocate.
- Reviewing their health status to assist and support.
- Assessing the environment to ensure their safety and to prevent any recurrence.
- Ensuring their wellbeing and assisting in developing the participant/family’s confidence and competence, so they do not lose any function/s.
- The Agency or their delegate will review the incident with the participant/family.
- Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will collaborate with the person/s involved to manage and resolve the incident.
Step 4. Analyse incident
- As part of our continuous improvement process, the information gained from an incident is used to amend or implement new practices:
- When an investigation by a registered In Home Care provider is necessary to establish the cause/s of an incident, its effect, any operational issues that may have contributed to the incident occurring and the nature of the investigation.
- If an incident requires the implementation of corrective action, an appropriate plan will be developed to adjust practices according to the nature of the action required.
- The Agency or their delegate will undertake an appropriate analytical process:
- Determine the cause of the incident.
- Ascertain if the incident was an operational issue.
- Consider the participant/family’s perspective, including:
- Whether the incident was preventable.
- How the incident was managed and reviewed.
- Determining any remedial action required to minimise future impacts and prevent recurrence.
- Identify why the incident occurred, e.g. environmental factors, participant/family’s health, etc.
- Ascertain if current strategies or processes require review and improvement.
- Devise new strategies or procedures, if required.
- Plan staff training for any new strategies.
- Implement new strategies.
- Evaluate the success of new strategies.
All Incident Investigation Forms must be closed out by Authorised personnel.
Step 5. Incident/accident minimisation and corrective action
- Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will risk-assess all participants/families in conjunction with our ‘Risk Management Policy and Procedure’.
- Incident, accident, emergency minimisation and procedures are taught during Staff orientation and in regular ongoing training sessions.
- Risks will be identified, and control mechanisms agreed upon with participants/families.
- Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will consult with participants/families, and relevant stakeholders, to design specific risk control mechanisms to reduce risk to participants/families and their environment.
- Effectiveness of mechanisms will be evaluated via:
- participant/family review processes; including support plan review
- participant/family feedback
- case conferencing.
- Internal and external risk audits.
- Reviews of policies and procedures.
Corrective actions: On completion of the incident analysis procedure, any corrective action will be implemented. Each corrective action identified will be evaluated to ascertain the effectiveness of the action, as per our Continuous Improvement Policy and Procedure, i.e. plan, do, check, act.
Step 6. Informing participants/families
Australia’s Leading Home Care Agency will inform participants/families, or their advocate, of the outcome/s of the incident; either in writing or verbally dependent on the participant/family and the situation. Collaborative practice will be undertaken to ensure the participant/family and their advocate are involved in the management and resolution of the incident.
An In Home Care Educator who is personally injured or damages property during children’s CCS attendance times (within work times) is covered by ALHCA Workcover Insurance and Public Liability Insurance. In Home Care Families who allow In Home Care Educators to remain within the boundaries of their property outside of the children’s CCS attendance times (outside work times) agree to have active insurance cover in place, that covers personal injury to others or damage to their property as a result of an incident.