Aged care SIRS: what counts as a reportable incident

A reportable incident under aged care's Serious Incident Response Scheme is one of eight incident types that happened, or is alleged or suspected to have happened, to a person receiving aged care. If both are true, you tell the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, even before anything is proven (About reportable incidents, as at October 2026).

In short

• A reportable incident under SIRS is one of eight incident types involving a person receiving aged care, proven or only suspected.
• The eight types run from unreasonable use of force and neglect to unexpected death, stealing by a staff member and inappropriate restrictive practices.
• Reportable incidents go to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Priority 1 within 24 hours of becoming aware, Priority 2 within 30 days.
• Suspected and alleged incidents count, as do incidents under police investigation and those the person involved does not want reported.
• Every reportable incident is recorded in your Incident Management System, whatever its priority.

What counts as a reportable incident under SIRS

A reportable incident is an incident involving a person's care that you must report to the Commission. The test has two parts: the incident is one of the eight reportable incident types, and it occurred, is alleged to have occurred, or is suspected of occurring to a person receiving aged care.

That is the Commission's own wording on its page about reportable incidents (About reportable incidents, as at October 2026). The word "suspected" is where most of the judgement sits. A reportable incident does not wait for proof, a confession, a police finding or the end of your own investigation.

The Commission is explicit that you need to tell it about incidents that are suspected or alleged even when you cannot confirm them, incidents under internal or police investigation, incidents involving people who do not want them reported, and incidents involving care recipients with cognitive impairments. It also states that you do not need permission from the people involved to make the report.

For a service manager, the practical reading is that the reporting decision and the investigation are separate pieces of work. The report starts the clock with the Commission. The investigation answers what happened. Waiting for the second before doing the first is how a 24 hour notification becomes a late one.

The eight reportable incident types in residential aged care

The eight reportable incident types are a fixed list, and the Commission publishes a guidance page with examples for each one. As at October 2026 they are:

• 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 in the course of delivery of care

Source: About reportable incidents, as at October 2026.

Two of these catch providers out more than the rest. Unexplained absence in the course of delivery of care is the residential form of a resident being away from the home without explanation, and the Commission keeps a separate guidance page for it. Inappropriate use of restrictive practices sits at the join between SIRS and the restrictive practices rules, so one event can trigger a reportable incident and a recording duty under your restrictive practices authorisation. Providers who also deliver NDIS supports will recognise the shape of that second duty, and we have written about the recording and reporting side of it in restrictive practices: what NDIS providers must record and report.

The Commission also publishes a SIRS decision support tool that walks through each incident type and asks the questions that decide whether it is reportable. It is worth putting in front of the people who make the call at 2am, not just in the policy folder.

Who you report to, and how quickly

Reportable incidents in residential aged care are reported to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Priority 1 incidents are notified within 24 hours of becoming aware of them, and Priority 2 incidents within 30 days of becoming aware of them.

Those two deadlines are set out on the Commission's reportable incidents guidance (About reportable incidents, as at October 2026). The clock runs from when the provider becomes aware, not from when the incident happened and not from when the report is written. That distinction matters, because the gap between a worker noticing something and the manager being told is where most of a 24 hour window gets spent.

Priority level sets urgency, not whether something is reportable. The Commission's examples of Priority 1 incidents include a physical or psychological injury or discomfort that needs medical or psychological treatment. Priority 2 is everything reportable that does not meet the Priority 1 threshold. Both go to the Commission, and both are recorded in the Incident Management System.

The same guidance notes that workers who believe a service's response is inadequate can raise it with the Commission directly, and that the Aged Care Act 2024 protects people who disclose reportable incidents, including workers, older people, supporters, volunteers and advocates. A reporting process that depends on a worker staying quiet is a process that is already failing.

Incident, reportable incident, and the line between them

Every reportable incident is an incident, but most incidents are not reportable incidents. A reportable incident is one of the eight types involving a person receiving aged care, and only that set carries the duty to notify the Commission.

An incident is anything that goes wrong in the course of care, from a medication timing error to a fall. The practical consequence is that your incident records will always be a larger set than your reportable incident notifications, and that is normal rather than a sign of under-reporting.

What a board should want to see is the relationship between the two: how many incidents were recorded, how many were assessed against the eight types, how many were notified, and how long the assessment took. A home that records 60 incidents and notifies none has either had a calm month or a triage problem, and the only way to tell the difference is to look at the assessment step.

What an Incident Management System has to do

An Incident Management System, usually shortened to IMS, is the system a provider uses to record, respond to, analyse and prevent incidents. SIRS requires one because reporting alone does not stop an incident happening again.

The Commission's guidance organises an IMS around building a safety culture, responding, recording, analysing, preventing, and closing the loop (Incident Management Systems, as at October 2026). All reportable incidents are recorded in the IMS, whatever their priority.

An IMS is not only a form. It is the record that tells you whether the same thing is happening in the same wing with the same staffing pattern, which is the question a governing body has to be able to answer.

Executives reading their IMS alongside the rest of their quality picture usually want the same few things in one view: how many incidents by type, how long assessment took, how many notifications were made inside the deadline, and what changed afterwards. Those sit naturally next to the mandatory quality measures, which we cover in aged care quality indicators: what they measure and how to read them. MERIT Lumina is built for exactly this kind of executive view, and can connect to the exports your existing systems already produce. More on how we approach aged care reporting is on our aged care page.

Common questions

What are the SIRS reportable incident categories in residential aged care?

There are eight: 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, and unexplained absence in the course of delivery of care. The Commission publishes a guidance page with examples for each type.

Who must a reportable incident be reported to under SIRS?

Reportable incidents in residential aged care are reported to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Reporting to the Commission does not replace any separate obligation to contact police or emergency services, and the Commission's guidance notes that incidents under police investigation are still reported to it.

How quickly must a provider report a reportable incident to the Commission?

Priority 1 incidents are notified within 24 hours of the provider becoming aware, and Priority 2 incidents within 30 days of becoming aware, as at October 2026. The trigger is awareness, not the date of the incident, so the internal escalation path is part of meeting the deadline.

What is the difference between an incident and a reportable incident under SIRS?

An incident is any event that goes wrong in the course of care. A reportable incident is the smaller set that matches one of the eight reportable incident types and involves a person receiving aged care, and only those carry the duty to notify the Commission. All incidents belong in the Incident Management System either way.

Do near misses need to be recorded under SIRS?

A near miss is not one of the eight reportable incident types, so it does not trigger a notification to the Commission. The Commission's Incident Management System guidance covers recording, analysing and preventing incidents, which is the part of the system a near miss informs. Your own IMS policy sets what staff record, and the Commission's SIRS decision support tool is the official place to check a borderline event.

Sources

• About reportable incidents, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, as at October 2026
• Reportable incidents, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, as at October 2026
• The Serious Incident Response Scheme, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, as at October 2026
• Incident Management Systems, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, as at October 2026